The updated paper from the Stanford HAI team presents rigorous and insightful research into the performance of generative AI tools for legal research. The complexity of legal research is well-acknowledged, and this study looks into the capabilities and limitations of AI-driven legal research tools like Lexis+ AI and Westlaw AI-Assisted Research.

Stanford and Unclean Hands

This is Stanford Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) team’s second bite at this apple. The first version of this report was criticized by me and others for using Thomson Reuters’ Practical Law AI tool as a legal research tool instead of using Westlaw Precision AI (which they call Westlaw AI-AR in their report.) In the follow up report, and in the blog post and on LinkedIn posts, authors of the report made it sound like Thomson Reuters had some nefarious reason for this. In reality, TR had not released the AI tool to any academic institutions, not just the Stanford group.

In the original report, this should have been posted up front and center on the paper, instead it was finally mentioned on page 9. It appears to me that Stanford HAI released the initial report in an attempt to pressure TR to give them access, which did work. However, this type of maneuver from Stanford HAI may have repercussions on whether the legal industry gives them a second chance to take this report seriously. We expect a high degree of ethics from prestigious instructions like Stanford, and in my opinion, this team of researchers did not meet those expectations in the initial report.

Challenges in Legal Research

Legal research is inherently challenging due to the intricate and nuanced nature of legal language and the vast array of case law, statutes, and regulations that must be navigated. The Stanford researchers designed their study with prompts that often included false statements or were worded in ways that tested the AI tools’ ability to understand legal complexities. This approach, while insightful, introduces a certain bias aimed at identifying the tools’ vulnerabilities. I would not say that they cherry-picked the results for the paper, but that the questions posed were designed to challenge the systems they were testing. This is not a bad thing, just something to consider when reading the report.

AI Tools: Strengths and Weaknesses

One of the primary advantages and disadvantages of legal research generative AI tools is their attempt to provide direct answers to user prompts. Traditional legal research tools like Westlaw and Lexis previously operated by presenting users with a list of relevant cases, statutes, and regulations based on Boolean or natural language searches. The shift to AI-generated responses aims to streamline this process but comes with its own set of challenges.

For instance, Westlaw’s Precision AI (Westlaw AI-AR) often produces lengthy answers, which can be a double-edged sword. While these detailed responses can be informative, they also increase the risk of including inaccuracies or “hallucinations.” The study highlights that these AI tools sometimes produce errors, raising questions about the effectiveness of their initial vector search compared to traditional Boolean and natural language searches. The researchers gave the results a Correct/Incorrect/Refusal score. To be correct, the AI generated answer had to be 100% correct. Any inaccurate information automatically resulted in an incorrect score. If the results had five points of reasoning, and only one of those was factually incorrect or hallucinated, the entire question was ruled incorrect. Something else to keep in mind when looking at the statistics.

Comparing AI and Traditional Searches

A key point of interest is how AI search results for statutes, regulations, and cases compare with traditional search methods. The study suggests that while the AI tools’ vector search technology is promising in retrieving relevant documents, the accuracy of the AI-generated responses is still a concern. Users must still verify the AI’s answers against the actual documents, much like traditional legal research. As my friend Tony Thai from Hyperdraft would jokingly say, “I mean we could just do the regular research and I don’t know...READ like we are paid to do.”

The Role of Vendors and the Future of Legal AI

Vendors like Westlaw and Lexis need to take this report seriously. The previous version of the study had its limitations, but the updated report addresses many of these deficiencies, providing a more comprehensive evaluation of the AI tools. While vendors may point out that the study is based on earlier versions of their products, the fundamental issues highlighted remain relevant.

The legal community has not abandoned these AI tools despite their flaws, primarily due to the decades of goodwill these vendors have built. The industry understands that this technology is still in its infancy. With the exception of CoCounsel, which was not directly evaluated in this study, these products have not reached their first birthday yet. This is very new technology which vendors and customers are wanting to get released quickly, and fix issues along the way. Vendors have the opportunity to engage in honest conversations with their customers about how they plan to improve these tools and reduce hallucinations. Vendors need to respect the customers and be forthcoming with issues they are working to correct. Creative advertising may create some short-term wins but may damage long-term relationships. Vendors are bending themselves into pretzels to advertise some version of “hallucination-free” on websites and marketing media when everyone knows that hallucinations in Generative AI tools is a feature, not a bug.

RAG as a Stop-Gap Measure

The study underscores that Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) is a temporary solution. Something I have discussed with the vendors for a while now. For generative AI tools to truly excel, users need more sophisticated ways to manipulate their searches, refine retrieval processes, and interact with the AI. Currently, the system is basic and limited, but there is optimism that it will improve with time and consumer pressure. RAG is one of the first steps toward improving AI generated results for legal research, not the last.

Personal Reflections and Industry Implications

Reflecting on the broader implications, it is clear that the AI tools in their current form are not yet replacements for thorough, human-conducted legal research. The tools offer significant promise but must evolve to become more reliable and versatile. Legal professionals must remain vigilant in verifying AI-generated outputs and continue to advocate for advancements that will make these tools more robust and dependable. We are right in the middle of the Trough of Disillusionment on the Gartner Hype Cycle. This means that customers are expecting solid results, and while there is this unusual honeymoon with the legal industry when it comes to forgiving AI tools for hallucinations, this honeymoon will not last much longer. Lawyers are notorious for trying a product once, and if it works, they stick with it, and if it doesn’t, it may be months or years before they are willing to try it again. We are almost at that point in the industry with Generative AI tools that don’t reach their advertised abilities.

While the Stanford HAI report sheds light on the current state of legal AI research tools, it also provides a roadmap for future improvements. The legal community must work collaboratively with vendors to refine these Generative AI technologies, ensuring they become valuable assets in the practice of law.

Mathew Kerbis explains that his inspiration for transitioning to a subscription and flat fee model stemmed from the realization that many attorneys, including himself, could not afford their own billable rates. He emphasizes the importance of automating processes and leveraging technology to manage workflow and client needs efficiently, especially when offering lower-priced services.

Jack Shelton, whose firm focuses on the commercial space industry, shares his motivation for adopting a subscription model. He highlights the benefits of predictability and cost transparency for clients, particularly startups and small to medium-sized businesses. Shelton also discusses the development of in-house software to streamline complex analyses and improve accuracy and record-keeping for clients.

The guests explore the challenges and opportunities of scaling and sustaining a subscription-based model. Kerbis notes that the model is highly sustainable due to the predictability of monthly recurring revenue, while Shelton emphasizes the importance of refining processes and forms to ensure efficiency and effectiveness.

Looking to the future, Kerbis predicts that the rapid advancement of AI and the changing nature of legal practice will lead to a significant shift in the industry within the next five years. He suggests that if big law firms do not adapt, there may be a mass exodus of young associates seeking better work-life balance and the opportunity to start their own practices. Shelton, while agreeing with Kerbis to an extent, remains cautious about predicting a flood of lawyers leaving big law due to their risk-averse nature.

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Contact Us: 
Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Transcript

Greg Lambert 0:04
Welcome to The Geek in Review the podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal profession. I am Greg Lambert. Marlene is with us. But she’s got an emergency call she had to take at the last second. So she’ll hopefully join us later. And I’m joined by a special co host today, Toby.

Toby Brown 0:25
Toby Brown stepping in to help both hosts. So I may have some knowledge about the subject matter. And one of the original geeks,

Greg Lambert 0:34
Yeah, well, there will be a test at the end. And I’m sure Toby will be proctoring that that test ring. So. So we want to talk this week about a different way of looking at the way law firms bill. And for over the past half century, the billable hour has been kind of the dominant way in which law firms have charged their clients. And for almost as long and especially really kind of starting about the 2008 recession. The talk started around the billable hours, and usually that it was any talk was titled something along the lines of, you know, the death of the billable hour. That was that was kind of the discussion. And yet, despite all of that discussion, is still remains the primary business fee model for most law firms that are out there. And this was backed up recently when we had Chris Satkunis, on from CounselLink. And she talked about her recent survey. And even even now with as much as we’ve progressed, fixed fee and alternative fee rates really only make up about 10% of at least large law. Billings, and that number has been pretty steady for years. So, you know, so we thought instead of having the typical talk about, you know, just billable hours equaling bad, we thought we’d bring a couple of practicing attorneys on to discuss how they’ve adopted a subscription based model and why that works for them. So first up, we have Mathew Kerbis, out of Chicago, he’s the 2024 James Keane Award recipient, and founder of subscription attorney, LLC. And Mat, I’m hoping that the numbers are still right. This is a service that starts at $19.99 a month. And $49.99 a page. So Mathew, thanks for joining us here.

Mathew Kerbis 2:46
Happy to be here.

Toby Brown 2:49
And in Jack Shelton, in addition to billing differently is in a very unique area block is the co founder of a just space law, a boutique law firm that focuses on the commercial space industry, with a particular emphasis on export controls government and commercial contracting issues surrounding foreign ownership and control a licensing launch vehicles and spacecraft so really cool stuff. A just baseball also works on as we’ve been saying a subscription model for their clients, which includes startups and other domestic and international companies involved in the space industry. Jack, thank you for joining us as well.

Greg Lambert 3:28
Alright, so Mathew, let’s start with you. Talk to us a little bit more about you know, what inspired you to transition away from the traditional billable hour model to a subscription and flat fee model for legal services. Do you mind giving us some insights on what kind of inspired you to do that?

Mathew Kerbis 3:48
Yeah, so I, I was the last division Chair of the ABA back in 2013 or 2014. And I was at some ABA event where at the time ABA President James Silken who is a partner at side, we’ve started going to Cromwell or at least he was at the time so large old law firm was talking about the Access to Justice problem, which somehow I liked, had never really been exposed to before that moment, even though it you know, two years of law school just focused on studies in my third year, and he made some comment, some offhanded comment that people chuckled out. But he said he couldn’t afford his own billable rate. And I thought, well, that doesn’t make any sense. And since I’ve been giving CLEs on the subscription model, I like to ask the room, hey, who here can afford their own billable rate? And not and to this day, never seen it? After a few years of doing this? Not a single attorney has raised their hand. So it turns out, it’s pretty common. But that was sort of in the back of my mind. And when I got started practicing law, I was actually doing foreclosure defense work. So it’s keeping a roof over people’s heads. This would be this would be a few years before I went to do insurance defense work, where I was billing time on So I grew my salt before I sold my salt a little bit. So I ended up with net regular salt. But, but the point of that story is when we were at when I was doing foreclosure defense work, my, my boss was essentially charging our clients on a flat amount every single month that we could keep them in their homes within the rules of civil procedure. I mean, because they didn’t pay their mortgage. So like, what else could we do, right. And it was really the subscription model. And so it’s sort of that, you know, I heard about the attorney can afford his own legal fees. And then I was sort of introduced without really knowing it to the subscription model. And then after several years of billing time, I just knew there had to be a better way. And I went looking for that answer. And kind of found it, there was like one ABA journal article about some lawyers using subscription and alternative fees. There weren’t a lot of resources. And so I just kind of had to just make it up as I went, which I’m still doing today, I take a very much a startup mindset of continuing to build the ship as I sail it, and sort of continue to adapt as we go. But that $20 A month thing that was from the very start that that pricing is still accurate.

Greg Lambert 6:07
So I’m sure Toby will have some comments on how much you need to raise your fees every month. But before we get to that, Jack, do you mind telling us, you know, what motivated you to adopt a subscription based model? And, and how does that work across a firm that has multiple attorneys?

Jack Shelton 6:28
Yeah, so I got started doing subscriptions, just because I hated billing hourly. It initially just started, like, I really just hated the practice of doing. And I worked for a couple of bigger firms. And that was the norm, you know, we had to do. So I got started in the maritime world, working for ocean carriers, a lot of what I was doing was, you know, you would have vessel collisions, things like that, suddenly representing these insurance companies. And, you know, when you’re representing insurance companies, you got to do the billable hour, you have to code all of your entries in a certain way. And you have to write these long descriptions. And just thought it was the dumbest, most useless, pointless thing. And then I was transitioned from that to mostly representing businesses and transactional matters, and well, how the small businesses that are taught to you it really is really like this, like when they give it to you in this format. Now, the stresses me out stupid. So okay, well, I guess I don’t need to write these long descriptions of every six minutes that I spent working on your team. Another thing that kind of sent me in that direction was, there was one alternative for most working for. And she was just in business transactional stuff. And she had this great idea that I thought is a great idea. She would charge for transactional clients $200 a month or something like that. And that would just be for her to be on call. And she wouldn’t charge them for phone calls. After that. Any substantive work, she would bill out. But for that $200 a month, she basically said, hey, I’ll pick up the phone anytime you call. And I’ll answer your question if I know it. And that way, you never feel stressed out about picking up the phone to call me incentivize you to do that. I thought that was really smart from perspective of benefiting the client, but it also had this really brilliant benefits her in that it made her sticky like that clients not going to go find another attorney after that to do the substantive work if they’re getting hurt and bath to do that. So I thought it was really smart. So when I when I left the last law firm that was working out to start my own. The first thing I did was I found one client who was willing to pay me a certain amount every month just to be there. Gertie has kind of a fractional in House Counsel’s. And I just grew up from there.

Toby Brown 8:53
So Jack, I want to turn a little bit to the client experience, because in my experience, I have a lot of big law, a lot of clients say that we don’t like the billable hour, but when push comes to shove, they go with the billable hour and this guy. They I can’t tell you how many times I ran my purchasing team through the exercises, say we’re going to put this into some kind of fixed fee, retaining a monthly retainer subscription order model in the last hour, the client goes, Yeah, we just want to do rates and discounts. So how has this model impacted your clients experience, particularly in terms of the cost, transparency and predictability? I’ve had conversations with Bailey [Reichelt], your Co Founder, and you mentioned that predictability and cost is very important to start. Can you give us a little more color models of how that as as blue out? Sure.

Jack Shelton 9:43
My experience, the companies that tend to want to stick to the bill about billable hour tend to be the larger companies that are smaller businesses, medium sized businesses tend to be more concerned with just unpredictability. Rather than counting every hour and seeing where they can figure out how to say no to that six minutes I spent over a year. The small businesses that we work with, it’s really important for them to be able to set a budget. Yeah, and for a rebuild to be a line item. Especially because they don’t have a tremendous amount of money for operating expenses. And you know, everything like legal is going to be cutting into that. And so just knowing that it’s going to be a set amount every month or every quarter, it really helps them know how much money they need to set aside to do certain things.

Toby Brown 10:38
So that you don’t have him coming back to you and saying, well, in April, it didn’t seem like he spent a lot of time so we need to talk about that.

Jack Shelton 10:46
So one of the things we explain on the front end is, look, there’s going to be months or quarters. So just explain, sometimes we build quarterly, we’ve tended to do that. More recently, when we got started, it was more monthly, but now we really do quarterly. But when we explain it to clients, we say, look, there’s going to be certain periods in which we are working a bit more than what we’ll have initially conceptualized when we sign you on, and then other periods is can be a little bit less, it’s going to tend to average out. If it doesn’t, and we’ll come back and we’ll adjust it. And people have tended to be really happy with that. They just said the predictability.

Toby Brown 11:28
The only the larger clients can.

Greg Lambert 11:32
It’s only No, probably not right.

Marlene Gebauer 11:36
Alright, so I’m jumping in. Thanks, everybody, for your patience. And questions for Mathew, as you if you as you grow a subscription service and add more and more clients, how do you navigate and manage the workflow and the needs of those clients? You know, are you able to leverage any process improvements or technologies to help with that demand?

Mathew Kerbis 12:01
Absolutely. Fantastic question. I also have like, a 60, minute CLE, pretty much are dedicated to that. So trying to just get it narrowed on this one? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, essentially, even before, like Gen AI, I hit the scene, I was using AI tools that were available to me, which sometimes did and sometimes didn’t include automation. But like Calendly, for example, is a tool that I leverage. And they have tons of automations that you can build in to it, right. So one of the things that I do is, in particular, when you’re trying to serve the legal market like I am, and you’re charging not a lot of money to do so you have to You’re not billing your time, but you have to manage your time very well. And so one of the ways is no, like Jack gave the example of somebody who was charging 200 a month, you could call whenever they want and they didn’t get billed separately for it. Well, I don’t do that that’s not an option to my subscribers, one of my subscriber benefits is being able to schedule 15 minute calls with me at a time. And that $20 a month level only gets you the end of my day, every day, and occasionally an hour or two of availability on a Saturday. Meanwhile, my higher level subscribers just get access to my entire calendar of availability, right. So like whether you’re billing your time or not, none of us as lawyers can really just answer the phone whenever that’s why there are answering services, and we have to hire staff and stuff. I’m a true SoloQ some of the ways I continue to charge lower prices, is I just have to be efficient with my overhead as well. And so I have to automate everything. And so like leveraging tools, like Calendly really helps do to do that. And that’s like, like if there’s anything that there’s a takeaway from that 60 minutes. CLE is like just use a tool like Calendly you know, Microsoft bookings if you’ve Microsoft Google appointments if you’re just all in on Google, but I prefer best of breed tech. And so I really like a tool occasionally that like we just do scheduling, that’s all we do. We do it better than anyone else. And so like, you know, your acuity was acquired by Squarespace. So now, it used to be like that. But now it’s built. It’s one feature in Squarespace. I don’t know that they dedicate the resources to acuity that maybe used to be when it was a separate company. But if you your website back end is built out using Squarespace acuity is built into that nowadays. And I think LawMatics, too is like this version for legal tech, if you’re looking for like a legal tech based solution, and using some of those other CRM related features, which I have a different platform I utilize for that. But then also font and the last note I’ll say on that is like utilizing a client portal. First of all, it’s probably necessary to maintain attorney client privilege instead of emailing unencrypted emailing back and forth. So like utilizing a client portal, I use non legal tech solution for that called Sweet dash. Its white label client portal software that integrates with stripe. You also have to automate all your payments right so like once my client signs up, like I never have to worry about anything because Sweet dash and Stripe automate all the automated subscription charging, and when I do charge flat for flat fee work only available to subscribers, those are all built out in sweet dash, right just drop down menu, click, boom, it’s off, and I don’t have to worry about it. So automating all the invoicing and billing and subscription stuff, too, is also super important. You could do that right within stripe, or some of these other platforms. But I prefer to utilize suite dashboard because of the layering on top of stripe that it offers, in addition to the client portal features that I use. So

Marlene Gebauer 15:32
go ahead, Toby,

Toby Brown 15:34
I have to give you points removed correction. So years ago, I worked with the Utah State Bar, and I understood the technology email, and I argued that we should had an ethics rule that says you can’t use email privilege. Unless it’s encrypted. And man, I was shot down, I was shot down. So thank you for actually understanding

Mathew Kerbis 15:54
To that point. Like I try to make all my clients communicate with me in the client portal. But they do just sometimes want to email me sensitive things. I’m like, if you do, we may be waiving attorney client privilege, you know, if this is how you want to have this conversation, I just got to let you know that I preferred some the client portal and so you know, it’s introducing some friction, which is not great. But for the bigger clients I have, like I’m in their Microsoft Teams and I the account with their you know, so that’s like, for the really big clients. I care about that stuff. That’s how I’m handling that kind of sorry, Marlene.

Marlene Gebauer 16:24
But no, that’s all right. It’s like, you know, I was it sounded like, you know, also some of these these different tools that you’re using, you know, they might, you know, there, there might be some integration and there might be some automation, like between tools. You know, is that something that also that you do? Because I’m sure there’s folks out there that are like, Oh, that’s so many things to have to observe, remember? So tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, yeah,

Mathew Kerbis 16:49
I mean, I am not really leveraging like Zapier or make, which used to be, was it Integra mat or something like a really bad brand name, and now it’s just make.com, which is good. And so I’ve looked at these tools, they don’t always really do the integrations I want to do. So I primarily just look for tools that have API’s with each other, and they inter already integrate with each other like Stripe, for payment processor basically integrates with everything. Because it’s like the largest one out there that’s in terms of ease of ease of use. And stripe only takes a percentage of the transaction, you know, there are ones out there like, like your law pays and Affinipay is and can find a legal that can be IOLTA compliant. So if you want to do a subscription, and your jurisdiction is such that it has to go into an IOLTA account first before it’s transferred, like at the end of the month, which I know some jurisdictions I know some lawyers I’ve had on my podcast have have said that they do that, you could you could then use like a confido legal, which automatically charges that 2.95% From your operating account. And you could still power your subscription that way. So there are tools available to do that. And, and even even with that all integration thing, I’m of the mindset in particular, for smaller law firms. I’m of the mindset that you want to maintain your subscription pricing separate from your other tools in the event that you want to switch because it reduces switching costs if you like, I don’t love sweet dash. So like the next time I do get a bigger high ticket subscriber, I’m actually going to put them on a subscription. Separate from that. I haven’t decided if I’m going to stick with stripe for that or if I’m going to use a confido legal but the reason for that is I don’t love sweet Dash. And I think I might want to switch client portal solutions. And I want to reduce the like inadvertent churn, which is where you lose a subscriber when I want to make that eventually make that switch. And so I’m actually have the mindset that maybe you don’t necessarily want everything to integrate in the event you want to because again, I’m sort of I want the best of breed tech. And if everything is integrating, you know, I’ll lose out in some automations if they’re not integrated. But then the benefit to me as a small business owner is why could switch if I find a better solution for another thing, without losing all these, these integrations and automation. So there’s definitely trade off. And you just have to, you know, every one of these software companies you charge, they charge you a subscription, they want you to be successful with their platform. So you could go out they have like YouTube FAQs, they have a knowledge base, you could learn and if you don’t want to, that is what you know, Fiverr or these other websites are for hire a freelancer that will help you set this up. Make sure your contracts are tight with them and that you own off the IP and all that just legal information for educational purposes, not legal advice. But you could always hire an expert. If you’re concerned that there’s too much technical stuff for you.

Greg Lambert 19:36
Jacqueline, let me toss it back over to you for now, on the technology piece. Are you also needing to, you know highly leveraged the technology in order to keep the efficiencies going?

Jack Shelton 19:51
We’re using some we’re actually working on developing some software in house for a few things for our clients to use. One thing that we use, and plan to explain a little bit about what we do. We work a lot in what’s called export controls. So it’s really two sets of regulations. One is called the International Traffic in arms regs. The other one is Export Administration rights. And essentially, what they say is, Hey, you, as a company have some stuff that has some national security interests involved in it, we don’t necessarily want foreign persons to be able to see your stuff and understand how to re engineer it outright. And so you have to protect your technology. And so for example, if they had CAD files related to their the wages they make, and they were to upload them to the cloud. And that cloud as a server based in Russia, animals, they essentially have exported their stuff to Russia. And that’s something that we’ve had to deal with before. And so we build out these procedures for our clients, so that they don’t inadvertently export their stuff. And the problem is that they have a whole lot of these trigger events that raise this question of me exporting when I do this thing. If I am exporting, do I need to get a license from the government? What do I need to do? And for most of our clients, they might have one in house person, or they might have zero and house persons who are able to do other stuff with them. So we serve as an outsourced compliance counsel for now, it’s difficult for them to just send us emails asking us these questions, because the emails get lost, the threads get confused. And then they’ve got all these record keeping requirements as well, that where they have to keep a record of the whole analysis, and when they raise the question to us and how we analyzed everything. So what we did was we created, we took some software that’s typically used for IT Helpdesk records. And we re engineered it for this purpose. So we created some very complex forms for them to answer intake questions. We then have a whole bunch of checklists on the back end that we go through where we can document our analysis, we can basically push a button, and it brings them the template, the Analysis template, and then you can click through, say, yes, yes, yes, no, no, yes. And so you can get the full analysis required to determine if we need to get a license for this person to take their laptop on vacation with. This has really reduced the amount of time it takes for us to do something, it also makes us we’re accurate. Because we’re all doing it the same way every time. And enables the client to have a really clean record of the analysis. And you know, if we determine we need to get a license from the government, we apply for the license, we get the license, we can upload it to the ticket so that it’s all there in just one record. They’re not having to remember, okay, Jack sent me an email, I need to download that PDF, I need to put it in the transaction folder, which just never happens. And then when they have an audit, it’s like, go through all of the emails and find all the things. So we just maintain the record for them. It makes it really simple.

Greg Lambert 23:19
Sounds like sounds like there’s some best practices in there.

Toby Brown 23:25
Greg, if I can add a little color like I did with Mathew, Jack, I’m gonna give you points for standardization. Most lawyers think bespoke means quality. But you nailed it. Standardization means it’s quality, every top. So well done on that’s, again, you guys are forward thinking in more than just fixed fees, subscription model and standardization,

Mathew Kerbis 23:47
Toby, to your point, and I’m sure Jackie agrees. And she did it. Like when you’re not billing your time, the less time you spend on something, the more money you make. And so like by standard like we’re incentivized financially to standardize, yes.

Jack Shelton 24:01
There’s, there’s a story that I read early on, when I was conceptualizing how we’re going to do subscriptions. I can’t remember where I read this. But it was this young attorney who came into a big law firm. And there was some sort of process that they had to do for clients all the time. I don’t know if it was in corporations or whatever. But it was some something that they spent a tremendous amount of time doing. And it was always exactly the same thing. And so what he did, he got clever, and he wrote a software program. And then he took the software program to his boss, and he said, Hey, this thing that you said took us hours and we can get it done in five minutes. And the boss became furious and was fired.

Greg Lambert 24:42
I think it’s a case of clarity story.

Jack Shelton 24:48
For law firms billing hourly, to get efficient, and to actually just get better at what they do. Instead. They tend to take as much time as they possibly can him also answering, read answer, writing memo,

Greg Lambert 25:06
I don’t think on when it comes to the billable hour, that you can take your time to do things and you don’t feel necessarily the pressure of being efficient and every single time. But when people think about a subscription model or an alternative fee model, where the less time you spend on something, the more money you can’t possibly make. And so the issue comes up of How sustainable is that? And how can I scale that in a way that, you know, that is effective, both for my clients, so that the clients get the outputs that they need, and for me so that I’m not, you know, at the end of the month having to write a check out of my own pocket to keep the lights on? So, Jacqueline, let me ask you first, you know, how do you how do you? Have you found that you’ve had any challenges when it comes to scaling things? In implementing the model? If so, how do you address those?

Jack Shelton 26:19
I’d say that the biggest challenge right now, is just the fact that the analyses that we have to do are so complicated. And so, like, the forms that I’ve created, for example, in our service desk, I created everything, and then I pitched it over to my colleagues to say, hey, go take a ticket, your here’s an incoming ticket, I’m assigning it to you. Take let’s see, see how it goes. And then she’ll come back and say, Jackie, you left out some questions, this is a stupid form, you need to fix it.

Greg Lambert 26:54
I I know who was saying that.

Jack Shelton 26:58
I didn’t do this intelligently enough. And so it’s always going to be, there’s going to be a period of time, where we’re just gonna have to keep refining. It’s going to take a walk.

Greg Lambert 27:10
But it isn’t one of those things where it’s like, it’s like publishing the most expensive one is the first one. And then after that, once you’ve kind of figured out the process, you can you use the next next one’s a little faster. The third one’s faster than that, that how you see it.

Jack Shelton 27:27
I think so. I mean, I put a tremendous amount of time into creating all the checklists and everything on the front end. And as we go, we’re gonna tweak the minutes. Frankly, it’s not that hard to tweak the machinery as we go. So I do think that at some point, we’re gonna get to a point where the client facing forms are really pristine. We’ve got explainer videos embedded in the forms, if they have a question don’t understand something, they just click video and have it explained to them. So they don’t have to call loads. And then on the back ends, the analysis forms that we’re using, making sure that we’ve thought through every single little, little iteration. And then making sure that the forms themselves aren’t overwhelming, making sure that we’re chunking the information correctly and breaking it down in such a way that it’s neither overwhelming your client and or overwhelming us. And then after that, how do we eventually get, let’s say paralegals, doing the analysis, having them trained up enough so that they understand they’re part of the assembly line, then we’ll have a system that’s actually running really well. And maybe we would have a business we can sell one day, and not just have a bunch of attorneys kind of doing their own thing.

Greg Lambert 28:49
And, Mathew, what about you any challenges you’ve seen on sustainability or scalability?

Mathew Kerbis 28:56
I mean, I’ll speak to challenges in a second. But first, just on the success of the sustainability and scalability, right, so like, it is absolutely sustainable, right? Because now you’re talking about monthly recurring revenue and annual recurring revenue for the law firm. So it’s easier to manage a business when your outgoings expand is predictable, which of course it is, because it’s all subscriptions, or salaries, or lease payments, or whatever. So basically, all of your expenses are on a recurring basis as a law firm, for the most part, even if you have like a well oiled advertising machine, which I don’t, because I’m not really advertising and that is a hint on the problem of the scalability point. But, then when your income is something that’s recurring, that you could count on, you can anticipate it just becomes holy, easier to manage your business, right. And so from a sustainability standpoint, I think there’s nothing better than a subscription model. I think it’s about how like we define the benefits, the subscriber benefits or the value of what We do as lawyers, like in particular, with AI, right, like, Gen AI ai has made it easier than ever, for me to get results to clients faster, and to do things that it would never have made sense for a human to do. Right. And so even the value of what I’m able to provide my clients in a speedy fashion has significantly improved. From the day I started my practice to present day. And I’ve played around with a lot of tools, like dozens and dozens of AI tools, and I found a couple that work really well for me. And I’m not really using like the free ones that are out there, or the general tools, I’m using legal specific tools just like how, you know, lawyers will go off and they’ll be a CEO of a company, or they’ll be a politician, or they’ll even do some other things where they’re not practicing law, that legal mind helps them will these models that are trained on legal things I find do a heck of a lot better than these Large Language Models, then just the general not specific Large Language Models, just an even everyday thing. Like I’m using Paxton, and there’s a lot of them out there. But, but I’m using it just for like the way I used to use ChatGPT. I’m not, I’m still using Claude and some other things for like non legal work. But for the but even for the non legal work, I like to use these legal AI tools. And I’ve used some other ones as well, I just right now. That’s my favorite tool that I’m using. So, and I’ve had the other ones on my podcast with founders of the other ones. But, but so that helps with that in terms of scalability. I mean, it scales incredibly well, too, because you’re trying to automate things, you know, like Jack said, with forums, like I offload a lot of things to my clients to fill out whether that’s through a Google forum that I built, or through gavel, which is another automation platform that I use? Well, yeah, and so. So like offloading things that the clients can do, I have not had to hire yet, I’m sort of looking into it. But when I’m trying to hire is I’m trying to hire like a law clerk who knows how to use AI like legal AI. And there’s not a lot of those yet. And so because I want the substantive work, like I’m not trying to offload non substantive legal work, because I’ve got that all automated for the most part, right. So like, I’m trying to offload substantive work, and like there are lawyers would be too expensive, who know how to use AI, for like a firm like me to hire. So I’m really looking for like a law clerk, but they don’t really exist yet. So just throwing that out there into the ether to see if that comes back to me in some way. And and then the biggest problem for scalability for me, since I’m not charging a lot of money, I’m not willing to take on a bunch of debt is the advertising marketing side of things, right. And I had Alan Rodriguez on my podcast. And you know, he’s with one 400, and SR Law Group, came out of Legal Zoom and productize, their subscription offerings over there. And one of the things he said to me, which was illuminating was, the only thing preventing you from scaling is that you’re not willing to spend a lot of money on marketing, because your business model is pretty cool. And I think people would hire you. But like, You got to be willing to, you know, maybe take on a little bit of risk in that department, which I’m still kind of not. But in spite of that I am growing. And I mean, I from year one to year two, I’m more than 3x, two, my revenue. And I hope to do that, again, from year two to year three, and I’m in the middle of year three right now. So and I’m I’m progressing in that direction, right. So like sloped slowly, but surely, I think it is scalable. And if you’re willing to take more risk as a business owner, then you think it could scale incredibly well.

Toby Brown 33:25
So for the next topic, we somewhat addressed this, but I want to bring it into a different focus and go there, I’m going to tell a story. So I like to tell stories. So 15 plus years ago, when I first got into legal pricing, I would talk to clients about six fields. And a concern they would express is I’m afraid that if I’m incentivizing you to not bring great that you’re gonna cut corners, and you’re gonna find the cheapest way. And my response we’re being a big law firm is, we don’t know how to do that we only overwork everything, so I wouldn’t worry about, but that perception was still there. So Mathew Greene your view? How does this subscription model have influenced the actual practice of law? For example, does it affect the way you or your team approach while you approach legal problem solving or client interaction compared to a billable hour because you better go

Mathew Kerbis 34:21
well, for those who are listening, and they’re, they have a bingo card, or they’re playing a drinking game, I’m gonna say it depends. So okay, so we set it it but it does depend on practice area in particular, but the subscription model solves that problem incredibly well, Toby, because the incentive is I want you to stay you client to stay subscribed to keep off offloading your legal services to me. And so I’m incentivized to do really effective work that is valuable for you on an ongoing basis so that you stay subscribed, instead of just this one off thing. So the analogy I like to use somebody did something with fish or something at some point, but I like an apple analogy. So most lawyers or law firms look at a client matter as a one bite at the apple situation, I get one bite at the apple, I want it to be the biggest juiciest bite I could possibly bite. Because there, they may never come back to me. But for me, what I do is I think I want to eat this whole apple. But I’m going to do it over time. And so we’re at and it’s gonna, it could take 20 to 30 years because the subscription model makes you think about here’s another subscription economy term lifetime value LTV. And so the lifetime for me might be like 30 to 40 years as a practicing attorney. So I am thinking about things in terms of that, that mindset. But to Jack’s point, I have a brand, I’m building a brand, not just a law firm that’s just attached to my name. You know, Jack’s got a just law, I think I’m pronouncing that right II just like you, Jack will tell you,

Jack Shelton 35:52
It depends on if you have a military background or literature background.

Mathew Kerbis 35:56
Right. So like we’re building brands, so I’m thinking about lifetime value towards me. But I’m also thinking about lifetime value in terms of the life of the business. And the businesses that my law firm is serving, which could be for hundreds of years. And when you start to think about things in terms of that mindset, it totally shifts the dynamic. And it also lends itself to problem avoidance, where like an expert litigation firm can maybe just their subscriber benefit could be we helped keep you out of litigation. Yeah, an ongoing basis, because we’re experts in litigation. And so and there’s always potential for litigation. So I think that, you know, it just depends on how you frame it. And it depends on the practice area. This lends itself better to like trademarks, where you’re always protecting a brand, you know, cease and desist letters, maybe you’re registering new marks, right. So like, it makes a heck of a lot of sense. And like copyright trademark IP work. That’s kind of where the, the subscription model really took off with Ken Bennett, right. But it works really well. freq for fractional GCS, as well, which is, which is really what I do is fractional general counselor. So

Toby Brown 36:56
Mathew, again, I’m gonna give you a point here, because, well, that was a very good answer. But on top of that, this is something I tried to get law firms to get in their minds. It’s a thing that every other business dreams of and it’s called recurring revenue. Instead of a single bite, it’s not only you get to eat the old Apple, you have a yellow line of apples to go out into the into the future. So recurring revenue is a core, you know, most businesses that that is a sought after thing, but most law firms don’t even know what it means. So well done. Thanks.

Greg Lambert 37:36
Jack, let me let me turn it back over to you do you first see that this subscription model is something that would become more prevalent prevail and in the legal industry, not just for startups, but actually, do you foresee this leaching into bigger law firms, as they see success from firms like yourself? Or do you think you’re standing alone? I can, I can tell you don’t think this.

Jack Shelton 38:06
Law firms are ever going to do it based on the weather models work, they’re always going to build hourly, I’ll give you an example. This is my co founders story, Bailey, she’s. So she’s helping this client of ours. From an export control standpoint on this big deal that involves potentially selling some widgets to a foreign country. And there’s an investor on the other side that’s going to invest only if this widget can be sold at the swearing in. So that investor has seven attorneys on the phone. And our client has seven other attorneys from another law firm, where the corporate CPAs attorneys, and so you’ve got seven plus seven and then Bailey. That’s how big law firms make money.

Toby Brown 39:52
Well, this is not normal for me to defend big law firms. And we talked about this a little bit earlier at In my experience, and I gave a story about how I would provide fixed fees and clients will always revert to disk. And that that has not changed 15 years. And what I came to realize is, clients do not know how to buy on a fixed speed. They, they don’t, they don’t know how to say, okay, for x, it shouldn’t be $100,000. Whatever it is, they’re unable to do that, in part because they don’t scope their work. And then they don’t manage the scope. If you’ve got scope and a budget, then it makes sense to say I can price compare across the only way they can price compare his own rate. And so clients who buy from big law are unable to buy other than the hourly or rarely do it. But, you know, obviously, there’s exceptions. I know Amazon was very, you know, fixed fees, and some other clients are into that. But for the most part in house counsel, that’s the only way. So sorry. But I that’s why I’m agreeing.

Greg Lambert 41:01
Let me turn that just a little bit. If I’m the client that has, you know, seven or 14 attorneys, and, you know, if I’m thinking about it, and I realized that the one person who knows what she’s talking about would be, you know, at least I would know exactly how much I was going to be paying her every month, every month. And that would be of great benefit for me. So how is of how are you able to spin situations like that and to recruiting new clients that lived through that? Or is that not necessarily your client base that you’re looking at?

Jack Shelton 41:47
Yeah, and we’ve been a little careful what you say, we’ve been able to take a number of clients, and these aren’t massive clients, but take take a number of clients away from the bigger firms, the bigger firms, both because of our expertise in what you’re getting forgetting, we’re not allowed to say the word expert lawyers, but our our knowledge in the subject matter. Both both both our deep knowledge and subject matter and the way we bill and the trans pricing transparency, we’ve been able to take some clients away because of that, you know, we, another attorney who were close to, in our, in our industry told us that he had a meeting with a big firm that was considering copying what we’re doing. And he looked him in the eye and said, You’re not going to be able to do it. Because you’re a big firm and the way all of your incentive structures work and can’t tell you what to do, or I just don’t see big firms doing this.

Greg Lambert 42:58
And we’ve had a similar conversation when it comes to out even between two big law firms like technology, how we implement things, even if I gave you a checklist of everything that we do, your structure is so different from ours, there’s no way that you could even do it, because it would it would entail changing everything from the ground up. So very interesting.

Marlene Gebauer 43:27
So speaking of change, this is the part of the podcast where we asked our crystal ball question to, to our guests. So basically, we’ll start with Mathew, you know, what do you see as a major change or challenge for the legal industry over the next two to five years?

Mathew Kerbis 43:50
Yeah, so I think two to five years is hard. But I think that’s the right range. Right?

Marlene Gebauer 43:57
Because question that you want to be asked.

Mathew Kerbis 44:00
I hear you, I hear you. You know, exponential growth is something that’s hard for people to understand. And even those of us who like try to understand it, it’s still hard to understand, right? Like, how many times do you double folding a piece of paper over? So that encompasses the whole earth? And it’s like, really, it’s like less than 50, right. And most of that coverage happens in like the last three folds. And with the way AI is going and adoption and improving. It’s at an exponential growth curve. And so I think we’re actually going to see a lot of this happen in the next five years. I don’t have a lot of data to go off of, but like I’ve been giving CLAS on this for a little while now. And I don’t have statistics from all of them. But lawline has the numbers there. So like there’s over 550 people who want to know how to do subscription legal services, just mine. I know lawline offers other programs out there from the AI will end the billable hour are you prepared one which is less than a month old at the time of recording? There’s already Almost half that 245 People who have viewed that one, right. And I know I’ve done this more. So there’s even more lawyers who are interested in this kind of thing. I think that we will start to see if big law doesn’t adapt. There’s a lot of If This Then That, you know, stuff for my prediction is big law doesn’t adapt, I think we’ll see a mass exodus from big law, where young associates who don’t want to build time and they want more work life balance, and they decide that a lower six figure salary is enough, of course, they’d be paying themselves because they’re starting their own law firms, it’s easier than ever and cheaper than ever to start your own law firm. And when you use something like a 650, as a back office are some of the other competitors out there. You know, these other sought like legal tech software solutions, some of which have spun out of law firms, like 650 did that are more reliable, then I feel like you know, just becomes easier than ever for them to just leave and start their own thing. And there’s already a labor crunch. And that’s why you’ve seen people like Alex Sue, go to attitude. Because of like the way like the nature of of the structure of law firms and how we practice law is radically changing. And I think I think it’s, it’s safe to say that if if we see status quo with big law, then then in five years from now, big law will look very different and less big law debts. And for the solo, small lawyer, we’re going to be offering more affordable legal services. So we’re helping to close that access to justice gap, and we’re going to be making more money doing so. And I think that’s a good thing for everybody.

Marlene Gebauer 46:30
Very good. And, Jack, what is your crystal ball telling you?

Jack Shelton 46:36
I really hate making predictions because that was wrong when I do and I’m already regretting not on taking on the last question. So to a certain extent, I agree with Mathew, I don’t think I’m more cautious about saying that we’re going to see a lot of attorneys go out and start their own gigs, because lawyers tend to be so risk averse. If I just think back to like my graduating class, to read only a couple of people who ever had an entrepreneurial owning their body that would go and start their firms, terrified, terrified. I was one of the people who’s terrified of it. It took me a long time before I finally just hated what I was doing enough that I went out and did my room che. So it, I don’t know, you might you might be right, Mathew, I do. I do think that there are there’s something peculiar about lawyers and how risk averse we are that probably not to be quite a flood of people leaving big law. But there’s, there’s definitely a certain extent…

Mathew Kerbis 47:44
We are the commensurate problem solvers. And I think that if the problem is the billable hour, and there’s a better way to solve it, and the solution is I have to start my own practice. And there’s a law firm in a box solution using AI and automations that they could just set up shop and go. I don’t know, I think we’ll see.

Greg Lambert 48:03
Well, as the great Yogi Berra once said that predictions are really hard, especially if they’re about the future. So we’ll, we’ll have to see how things go. So Mathew Kerbis, from Subscription Attorney, LLC, and Jack Sheldon from Aegis Space Law. Thank you very much for joining us today.

Mathew Kerbis 48:25
Thanks for having us.

Greg Lambert 48:26
And Toby, thank you for CO hosting.

Marlene Gebauer 48:33
And of course thanks to all of you our listeners for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoy the show, share it with a colleague we’d love to hear from you so reach out to us on social media I can be found on LinkedIn or on X at @gebauerm

Greg Lambert 48:46
And I can be reached at on LinkedIn or on x at @glambert. So Jack first of all set the record straight How do you pronounce it Aegis or E-gis?

Jack Shelton 48:58
I pronounced an Aegis Aegis military so there’s there’s a Jace is used in a few different contexts in the military. So anybody with a military background pronounces ages but people who didn’t have more of a literary background and read Greek will pronounce that Aegis

Greg Lambert 49:20
so where can where can people reach out to you online?

Jack Shelton 49:24
Aegis.law that is A-E-G-I-S dot law and I’m on some of the socials at @SpaceLawyerJack but mostly among

Greg Lambert 49:36
Mathew How about you?

Mathew Kerbis 49:38
So I have tons of content out there about this and I look forward to having Toby and Jack independently on my podcast last subscribed about it. So if this topic really interests the listeners last www.lawsubscribed.com You could subscribe to the podcast there for email updates or search last subscribed in any podcast app and listen to listen to it. There are I’m over 70 episodes now and a lot more in the can. And then the firm is subscription attorney LLC so SubscriptionAttorney.com All my engagement agreement is public or my pricing is public. I do this in the interest of the potential clients but also for other lawyers who want to do it too and see how I’m doing it. If this podcast episode when it’s live will be up on MathewKerbis.com. Plenty of Mathew are all my past speaking engagements are there. So if you like listening to me, because last subscribes about my guests, MathewKerbis.com is about where I’ve been speaking. And then I’m doing a new educational thing for kids called the law for kids podcast a lawforkidspodcast.com LFK pod on all socials, where it’s just one minute quick bite sized pieces on like things like what is a tort? What is negligence? What are damages? I try to answer those questions in a minute for kids to understand. So that’s a new thing that I’m doing. And the search the subscription attorney on LinkedIn, DM’s are open.

Marlene Gebauer 50:56
I’m sending my kids to listen to that. And well, thank you both again. And as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David DeCicca. Thank you very much Jerry.

Greg Lambert 51:11
All right Jerry. Thanks, everyone.

The integration between Vincent AI and ⁠iManage’s Insight Plus⁠ collection allows law firms to leverage their internal knowledge assets alongside vLex’s extensive public law database. This combination of the “two halves of the legal brain” enables lawyers to create brilliant first drafts and analyze documents using the power of generative AI. Walters emphasizes the importance of data quality and the role of knowledge management teams in curating the best practice documents for training AI models.

Security is a top priority for both vLex and iManage in this integration. Walters details the various measures taken to ensure data protection, including encryption, dedicated master keys for each firm, and compliance with industry standards such as ISO 27001 and SOC 2. He also clarifies that vLex uses retrieval-augmented generation, securely passing relevant documents to a closed instance of the foundation model without training on the data itself.

The second announcement focuses on the automated docket ingestion feature, which seamlessly saves court filings from Docket Alarm into the correct iManage folders. This practical solution eliminates the manual process of saving documents and ensures that all team members have access to the most up-to-date versions of the filings.

Looking ahead, Walters hints at future integration points between vLex and iManage, emphasizing the potential for generative AI to help law firms differentiate their services and meet client expectations. He sees Vincent AI as a secure bridge between generative AI and a firm’s internal work product, enabling them to leverage their knowledge assets without the need for expensive, in-house foundation models.

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

https://youtu.be/uDHXq8UT1UU

Contact Us:  Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com

Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

 Transcript

Greg Lambert 0:07
Welcome to The Geek in Review, the podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal industry. I’m Greg Lambert with a special episode where I am talking with Ed Walters, the street Chief Strategy Officer at vLex. Ed, thanks for jumping on the podcast to talk with me for a couple of new announcements that you guys have at vLex, where you’re releasing it this morning.

Ed Walters 0:32
Yeah, thanks for having me.

Greg Lambert 0:34
All right. So let me let me list off the two things that were in the in the press release, in order. First, you are announcing that there’s an integration with vLex vents in AI? And with iManage work, and I think this is probably between you, you and me and a few listeners is probably the bigger of the two. But you know, this is just huge news, I think for the legal profession, because this has been something that we’ve talked about almost as soon as we heard what Gen AI can do. It’s been Okay, great. When can I start putting, you know, getting use out of my data. And then second, there, you are announcing that there’s an automated docket ingestion feature, which will use vLex Docket Alarm to seamlessly load court filings into iManage into the correct folders for those matters. So do you mind just let’s back up to the first one and talk about give us a little bit more information on these integrations and what they mean for lawyers and legal teams?

Ed Walters 1:49
Sure. So at the top level, let me just say that I manage a company that we have respected for a long time, the vLex team, you know, sort of seen the kind of market penetration that they have their emphasis on security. They’re like one of the most trusted names in legal tech. And so this is an integration that we’ve been excited about for a long time. And the I think the aspiration here is that there’s a lot of potential places where you can sync up between vLex and vLex products like docket alarm, and I manage. So we’re announcing two of them at our managers User Conference connect live, which is happening Wednesday and Thursday, this week, the 29th and 30th. of May. And we will announce from the stage on Thursday, tomorrow, the full integration, but we’re giving you a sneak preview today. However, let me let me talk about the first one that the integration between I manage and Vincent AI and the AI tool from VX, recently named the 2024, New Product of the Year by the American Association of law libraries, we’re over the moon about that. So the way this is going to work is that it is going to be an integration between Ion manages INSIGHT Plus collection for a firm and that firms vLex Vincent AI subscription if you’re subscribed to both products, and you have put that kind of curated, set superset of your best documents, into Insight Plus, when you’re doing research, or when you are creating workflows, or first drafts, or analyzing documents inside of the Vincent AI system, you can use that whole V lacks knowledge base of public law. But you can also pull in documents from the INSIGHT Plus collection from your private collection. And let me just say for a second why I’m so geeked about this on gated review, I really think that the legal brain kind of has two halves. There’s a Public Law half of the legal brain that has judicial opinions and statutes and regulations and court rules, law review articles and things like that. And then the other lobe is the internal knowledge assets of the firm. And in some ways, these are the most important assets that law firms have on their books. This is the playbooks. This is the unique way of doing things. This is what if you if you train your lawyers, this is what you’re hoping that they’re going to learn. In a think for gender of AI. We’ve had solutions, look at internal law firm playbooks. We’ve had solutions that look at the kind of right move Have the brain that public law part of it. But I think this will be the first time you can look at both at the same time, in the same interface for the same gender to the AI tool. And I think in the same ways that we were pleasantly surprised at what happened, when you run generative AI on the public wall database, I think we’re going to be equally amazed at what happens when you combine the world’s largest public law, intelligence platform and relax. And I think that the largest collection of internal firm documents with IMEC.

Greg Lambert 5:33
Yeah, I imagined is now just a kind of a technical question before we move on. Is this the cloud version of iManage? Would the firm need to be on that version in order to get access to these features? Yes, so

Ed Walters 5:52
you need to be on the INSIGHT Plus platform inside of I’m in it. And that is not like the entire database from the firm. This is a curated set of documents that the law firm say, I want to put this in the INSIGHT Plus collection.

Greg Lambert 6:11
And typically, this would be like a knowledge management team that has worked with the individual practice areas to I mean, to some to dumb it down a little bit. So even I could understand it, or it basically your you want your best practice documents that are in there, kind of like the old days where, you know, we started with a with a red well, that had the bit, you know, the best contract, then we moved that online with our KVM. Team. And now this is just kind of that next version of that bigger, bigger, better class of documents. Right?

Ed Walters 6:44
I think that’s right, I think that’s a good way of understanding it. And, you know, I think when you’re when you’re looking at AI, and we talked about this before retrieval, augmented generation, all of the results coming out of generative AI are based on the data on the quality of the data on the quality of the data. And I don’t think that you would want generative AI training on everything, you know, the menu for the summer, associate lunch, the email where you are, you know, RSVP to the party or something. The 17 drafts of the pleading before it comes out, you want the superset that read well, the version of the best documents. And those are what we should be using to train generative AI, which is why the INSIGHT Plus collections can be so powerful, combined with that kind of superset of public law. And if you notice that, like this is not just American law, I mean, we’re in the US. So we sort of think that from that perspective, but Vincent AI already works in the UK and Ireland, in Spain, and the European Union, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Singapore, New Zealand, we’re rolling out war seems like every month, and so global law firms could take like, you know, not just US Senator practice, but practice around the world in the European Union with our super set there, and really produce like, brilliant first drafts, not just for the US, but anywhere in the

Greg Lambert 8:14
world. Excellent. Well, I know one of the biggest barriers since day one since November of 2022, when we started getting hands on ChatGPT. Three, it has been security concerns and protecting client data. Now I know I manage I mean, this is their bread and butter, of being able to to not just protect the data, but also to isolate the data so that things like ethical walls can be set up in in making sure that people keeping honest people honest and not being able to get to things that that they don’t want to or don’t need to get to. So how and I know you’ve we talked about this for we went on, you kind of have a script that you want to make sure that you cover this correctly. So how did you guys look at protecting it so that when you go to mine, IT security ops team, that they’re comfortable in rolling out a product like this?

Ed Walters 9:18
Yeah, I think that I think you’re right, that is the most essential piece. And you better believe that the iManage team for whom security is their bread and butter marched us through the paces to make sure that everything we do together maintains that security. So I think when the when the VFX team and the Fastcase team worked together with I managed to build this out. We wanted to, you know, overperform we wanted to really shoot the lights out on security, we want to exceed the best industry standards. And so, you know, I did make a checklist. I want to make sure that I’m hitting all the points. So first, we start with encryption. We got all of the information In all customer data or conversation logs, all text from uploaded files, and metadata is encrypted in transit. And at rest, we want to make sure that it’s encrypted through the entire process, like the best security systems are the data these stored using, it’s called a FIPS, 142 compliant algorithmic suite. But it’s like one of the most secure data suites that you can have. It has hardware security modules, and each enterprise customer, like each law firm has their own dedicated encryption master key. So if not, we’re using one key for everybody, right? You know, Jackson Walker has one scan as another, you have your own dedicated master key. And then for global firms, like you have to have some control over those keys. So firms can choose the region residency of a master keys and host them in their own self managed Amazon Web Services account. If you’re in Europe, and you need that key to stay in Europe, you can do that. If you’re in the US and want to keep it in the US soon. You can do that as well. There’s a lot to say about it. But I think it’s safe to say that every security certification that you can get, we’re trying to go load up beyond it was finished. For the security nerds ISO [27001]. Audit, we’ve got a draft certification. And the full certification is just a kind of a matter of timing. Now, we’re, we’ve finished the sock to audit and we’re in the three month sock to surveillance period. But I think maybe the last thing to say is just that, you know, we are not unlike open AI, or, you know, Google with Gemini, we’re not training our own foundation law. So everything we’re doing here is provable amended generation. It’s a little bit like a search engine. You know, if a retrieval party, we are pulling the relevant documents through a secure channel, and storing the data securely, but with those documents, we’re then passing them securely with the dedicated closed instance of the foundation model. In our case, we’re using GPT-4 Turbo right now, but we’re paying through the nose for the super secure version of it. So nothing ever goes to train that model. And we’re not treated with the data. When that transaction is done, when the prompt gets passed, we get the result. All that data is securely only accessible to the firm, not to us, not open AI, not to Google or anyone else. Okay.

Greg Lambert 12:55
All right. So now you’ve convinced my security ops team that it’s okay to do this. Now comes the really hard test of how what what would you say is kind of the biggest value of being able to do this? And what are you doing to make sure that there’s not any kind of potential bias that that’s going on? Or that you’re making sure that answers that are coming back? Or, again, grounded to the documents that, that we’ve isolated as our best practice documents? Yeah, how do you convince the lawyers now to use it?

Ed Walters 13:39
Well, I think, you know, the, the first way you’d have to do that is it just has to work. Like when you know, try to draft things with it, when you evaluate documents with when you try to figure out what comes next. What’s missing, then a contract that has to just flat out work. And this is a place where I think lawyers have been very favorably impressed. It’s why, you know, I think that there were there are more nominations this year than ever for the American Association of law libraries, new product, or like, everybody had an AI product this year. Yeah, this competing for that award. But among all of them, you know, and I always say law librarians are the most discriminating the most sophisticated consumers of these things. Among all of them. They picked Vincent AI. So I would just say, you know, the proof of that the proof is in the pudding. The proof of the pudding is in the eating maybe. And, you know, I think people have to be delighted by it. And it has to just flat out work. And I think that’s been our experience. We just did a couple of different law school, head to head Robot Wars, among the various different genealogy pools. And I’ll just say, you know, Vincent AI did very well, in terms of, you know, the kind of bias and the usefulness of it. I think, you know, we test as most as, as most software developers do, the outputs, I think we’ve benchmarked them. And I think we’ve been pretty favorably impressed with them in the testing. But I mean, American law, in some case, the law of other countries can also reflect bias, I want to be very careful about this. I think you and others have called out software manufacturers for overstating claims about gender to the AI. I don’t want to do that here. I think gender they AI is amazing. But in some sense, these transformers, the T and GPT, are really kind of predicting what the next word is going to be. And not all of the law in the world history is unbiased. And so I think this is a problem we’ll face in the profession. I think it’s it does very well, all these things, but I’ll never say it is completely unbiased. Maybe the last thing to say about it is just the usefulness of it. I think that there’s a lot of things on lawyers too. And legal information professionals do, that they can’t go through. That is just BurgerTime. I think about the document review that we did before he discovery came out, right? Is it useful to have technology assisted review for ediscovery castle with this, as one of the lawyers who did paper discovery back in the day? Anybody who’s had to do that will find it extremely useful if we can automate and mechanize than drugs were. And I will also say, you know, I’m not Panglossian about and I’m not going to say this is the solution that does everything. I always imagined legal work like a chain, right. And we can replace certain links in that chain. But the last links in that chain have to be human judgments. You have to have discriminating information professionals, when you do retrieval augmented generation, who can look at what’s going into making the answer and say include these, not this one, I don’t think this one’s useful. That’s a place where I think fits in really stands out, users can go through audit the list and say, I don’t want to include these two, but I want the rest of them. And I think it is hopefully like more incumbent than ever, that legal information professionals law librarians, paralegals researchers, and lawyers are very, very careful, they’re more discriminating than ever about those sources, you need to make sure that all of the cases exist in the world that they’re not hallucinated, you need to make them verify up, you need to check to make sure that you’re using the right work product from inside of iMatch. And so in some ways, we are automating the worst parts of the work like we did with ediscovery. But it does require and we are more sophisticated, in some ways, we’re more critical and discriminating in some ways, and these are skills that will be important for the next 20 years.

Greg Lambert 18:36
And I’m gonna I’m gonna hit you with a question that isn’t isn’t on the list. And, and hopefully, it’s not outside the scope here. But during the testing of this, was there anything that kind of stood out or surprised you it that worked better than you thought? When when you’re integrating these two products?

Ed Walters 19:00
Yeah, I don’t I don’t have a good answer from the for the iManage front. But I have a great answer. From a demo that I did with Craig Newton, who is the director of Cornell’s Legal Information Institute. We were trying to make videos and screw up. And we were offering a little bit we add the mud tires on. And so we were asking questions that there weren’t answers to, to see if we can make Vincent like make something. And so we were asking questions about to liability when unoccupied autonomous cars crash. And there’s not really any answer to that question. Right. And Craig knew it and he was trying to make it flow or create cases from the future or something.

Greg Lambert 19:51
And which can happen I hear and happens.

Ed Walters 19:56
Didn’t happen. So what happened was, Vincent AI came back concern, I don’t have any cases dealing with autonomous vehicles without occupants. But you might find interesting these analogous cases, from the 1930s when elevators stopped having operators and started running by themselves, the elevators, you used to have a person who was in there, like pulling the alarm and stopping on the fourth floor. Yeah. And at some point, we created self driving elevators. And guess what I mean, some of them had accidents. And then the question is, you know, is the elevator manufacturer liable? Is the building owner, the elevator owner liable? Is the person who gets in the self driving elevator, you know, that responsible because they knew what they’re getting into. I thought that was so interesting, like the idea that a generative AI tool could maybe effectively reason by analogy. And when I thought about it, it’s you know, it’s not really looking at keywords like we used to, it’s like MIT concepts, you know, that your database, like the concepts that are similar are really close together. Right? And the concepts of self driving accidents, I shared a little bit of conceptual DNA with elevators. I think every call

Greg Lambert 21:20
make make sense when you stand back and think about it. So alright, well, let’s, let’s jump over to the the docket alarm and integration with I manage as well. So, you know, talk to us a little bit more about how this is set up. And what what the use cases are for, for firms to kind of automate this this process of moving docket docket information directly into I manage Sure,

Ed Walters 21:50
well, I think people know, docket alarm. The idea is it will track litigation for firms. In addition to being a great research library and analytics library, searching for precedents and things like that. The specific use case here is when something new happens in the case, you get an answer to a complaint, there’s a motion filed in the case, the worst way to do it is to get an email from ECF and Pacer. And you click it and nine people get it, the first person gets the first free Look, everyone else sends an email around to everyone else in the firm to try and figure out who got it who’s got the document.

Greg Lambert 22:36
Or they just log in and pay for it. Right? The with the firm’s credit card? Yes.

Ed Walters 22:40
I mean, there are a lot of people who just pay the 10 cents per page, right? So docket alarm, kind of manage that process. But only to a point, right, so you get one, everyone gets an email with documents attached to it, you don’t have to worry about managing the first free look. And then it’s stored in docket alarm. The problem is that, you know, most I manage users and there’s a lot of them don’t want the doc and alarms, software, the the repo for those documents. And so they’re manually saving them one by one into the right client and matter. And iMac. And there are, you know, I think it’s, you know, probably 75% of the biggest 100 firms in the US use both docket alarm and iManage. And, you know, seven 810 lawyers that affirm docketing clerks, information professionals, law librarians are getting these emails. And nobody knows that someone save it, I manage.

Greg Lambert 23:45
Did I save it into the right folder? Yeah,

Ed Walters 23:48
you did. And then you have this happen scores of times a day. And so this is, I don’t think this is magical. But it’s extremely practical and useful. If you are one of the firm’s that’s using both iManage and docket alarm, when that happens, you’ll still get email, it will still be saved for even docket alarm, but it will also be saved to the client and the matter inside of iManage. He in exactly the right place, it will resolve conflicts, if there’s an update to that document, it’s quite an actually synced. If someone has the wrong version of it, it’ll be replaced by the right version of it, and all securely and nobody has to feed about it. Right. So I don’t know, I think people will tend to push like these kinds of magical AI solutions. I think this is just part of the integration that’s very practical, and very useful.

Greg Lambert 24:42
Is this again, the the cloud version of of iManage that you need to have or is this work is worth. Okay, so, so work is the just make sure I’m clear. That’s the on That’s the cloud version of vie manage, right? So

Ed Walters 25:04
this will save right into wherever you have your I manage it is in the cloud. Okay. Wherever you had your clients and matters for those filings will say directly to them.

Greg Lambert 25:16
Yeah. All right. Well, I know that I manage has their big conference today and tomorrow and, and you’re giving us a nice, early peek into this. Let’s look down the road. While you’re while you’re there at the conference, are you looking at building additional tools and relationships with with I manage that? You think you can kind of get ideas? What what may come down the road?

Ed Walters 25:45
A lot of ideas? Yeah. So I think that there’s, there’s a lot of useful integration points. I’m excited to launch these two that connect live, the New York user event for I manage. But I think these will be the first of many announcements with these integration points. And again, like just the iron of the liberation of these Crown Jewels, there’s been firms that have, you know, created their own Large Language Models that invested to create a foundation model inside the firm. You know, hugely expensive, that’s a really difficult thing to do. And then, you know, whenever there’s new stuff, once a year, once a quarter, once a day, you have to create, like an updated foundation model or something. And I can see why they might do it, right, because these knowledge assets are really important. They’re differentiators for firms. So I hope this is kind of a bridge instead of having to create your own $10 million foundation model. Vincent AI is a bridge between generative AI and your internal work product, your secret sauce, a secure bridge, a sock two compliant bridge, but a bridge that helps law firms to really use and leverage those knowledge assets, using generative AI to differentiate their services at a time where a lot of clients are saying, I want to know what your generative AI strategy is going to be.

Greg Lambert 27:21
Yeah, this this might be one of those things where you may or may have lucked out if you waited a little bit to

Ed Walters 27:33
some timers who did your homework with the epic all nighter? We should have been great. I certainly was.

Greg Lambert 27:42
A college students did that. All right, well, Ed Walters, Chief Strategy Officer at vLex, I want to thank you very much for coming in and taking the time to talk with us about the two new announcements that you have between vLex and iManage. So So Thanks. Thanks for having me, Greg. All right. And of course, thanks to all the listeners for listening to The Geek in Review. If you like what you hear, please share it with a colleague. We’d love to hear from you. So reach out, reach out to us online. LinkedIn is probably the best place to get a hold of us, Ed, if somebody wants to learn more, where should they go?

Ed Walters 28:25
LinkedIn, forward slash login forward slash Walters. I think I still have a, you know, Burner Twitter account on X, @EJWalters, but I’m with you. I think I think LinkedIn is where it’s at these days.

Greg Lambert 28:40
I think so for the legal profession. That seems to be where we’re, we’re housing right now. So and, of course, the music that you hear is from Jerry David DeCicca. So thank you, Jerry. And thanks again Ed.

Ed Walters 28:54
Thanks, Greg.

The integration between Vincent AI and ⁠iManage’s Insight Plus⁠ collection allows law firms to leverage their internal knowledge assets alongside vLex’s extensive public law database. This combination of the “two halves of the legal brain” enables lawyers to create brilliant first drafts and analyze documents using the power of generative AI. Walters emphasizes the importance of data quality and the role of knowledge management teams in curating the best practice documents for training AI models.

Security is a top priority for both vLex and iManage in this integration. Walters details the various measures taken to ensure data protection, including encryption, dedicated master keys for each firm, and compliance with industry standards such as ISO 27001 and SOC 2. He also clarifies that vLex uses retrieval-augmented generation, securely passing relevant documents to a closed instance of the foundation model without training on the data itself.

The second announcement focuses on the automated docket ingestion feature, which seamlessly saves court filings from Docket Alarm into the correct iManage folders. This practical solution eliminates the manual process of saving documents and ensures that all team members have access to the most up-to-date versions of the filings.

Looking ahead, Walters hints at future integration points between vLex and iManage, emphasizing the potential for generative AI to help law firms differentiate their services and meet client expectations. He sees Vincent AI as a secure bridge between generative AI and a firm’s internal work product, enabling them to leverage their knowledge assets without the need for expensive, in-house foundation models.

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

https://youtu.be/uDHXq8UT1UU

Contact Us:  Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com

Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

 Transcript

Greg Lambert 0:07
Welcome to The Geek in Review, the podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal industry. I’m Greg Lambert with a special episode where I am talking with Ed Walters, the street Chief Strategy Officer at vLex. Ed, thanks for jumping on the podcast to talk with me for a couple of new announcements that you guys have at vLex, where you’re releasing it this morning.

Ed Walters 0:32
Yeah, thanks for having me.

Greg Lambert 0:34
All right. So let me let me list off the two things that were in the in the press release, in order. First, you are announcing that there’s an integration with vLex vents in AI? And with iManage work, and I think this is probably between you, you and me and a few listeners is probably the bigger of the two. But you know, this is just huge news, I think for the legal profession, because this has been something that we’ve talked about almost as soon as we heard what Gen AI can do. It’s been Okay, great. When can I start putting, you know, getting use out of my data. And then second, there, you are announcing that there’s an automated docket ingestion feature, which will use vLex Docket Alarm to seamlessly load court filings into iManage into the correct folders for those matters. So do you mind just let’s back up to the first one and talk about give us a little bit more information on these integrations and what they mean for lawyers and legal teams?

Ed Walters 1:49
Sure. So at the top level, let me just say that I manage a company that we have respected for a long time, the vLex team, you know, sort of seen the kind of market penetration that they have their emphasis on security. They’re like one of the most trusted names in legal tech. And so this is an integration that we’ve been excited about for a long time. And the I think the aspiration here is that there’s a lot of potential places where you can sync up between vLex and vLex products like docket alarm, and I manage. So we’re announcing two of them at our managers User Conference connect live, which is happening Wednesday and Thursday, this week, the 29th and 30th. of May. And we will announce from the stage on Thursday, tomorrow, the full integration, but we’re giving you a sneak preview today. However, let me let me talk about the first one that the integration between I manage and Vincent AI and the AI tool from VX, recently named the 2024, New Product of the Year by the American Association of law libraries, we’re over the moon about that. So the way this is going to work is that it is going to be an integration between Ion manages INSIGHT Plus collection for a firm and that firms vLex Vincent AI subscription if you’re subscribed to both products, and you have put that kind of curated, set superset of your best documents, into Insight Plus, when you’re doing research, or when you are creating workflows, or first drafts, or analyzing documents inside of the Vincent AI system, you can use that whole V lacks knowledge base of public law. But you can also pull in documents from the INSIGHT Plus collection from your private collection. And let me just say for a second why I’m so geeked about this on gated review, I really think that the legal brain kind of has two halves. There’s a Public Law half of the legal brain that has judicial opinions and statutes and regulations and court rules, law review articles and things like that. And then the other lobe is the internal knowledge assets of the firm. And in some ways, these are the most important assets that law firms have on their books. This is the playbooks. This is the unique way of doing things. This is what if you if you train your lawyers, this is what you’re hoping that they’re going to learn. In a think for gender of AI. We’ve had solutions, look at internal law firm playbooks. We’ve had solutions that look at the kind of right move Have the brain that public law part of it. But I think this will be the first time you can look at both at the same time, in the same interface for the same gender to the AI tool. And I think in the same ways that we were pleasantly surprised at what happened, when you run generative AI on the public wall database, I think we’re going to be equally amazed at what happens when you combine the world’s largest public law, intelligence platform and relax. And I think that the largest collection of internal firm documents with IMEC.

Greg Lambert 5:33
Yeah, I imagined is now just a kind of a technical question before we move on. Is this the cloud version of iManage? Would the firm need to be on that version in order to get access to these features? Yes, so

Ed Walters 5:52
you need to be on the INSIGHT Plus platform inside of I’m in it. And that is not like the entire database from the firm. This is a curated set of documents that the law firm say, I want to put this in the INSIGHT Plus collection.

Greg Lambert 6:11
And typically, this would be like a knowledge management team that has worked with the individual practice areas to I mean, to some to dumb it down a little bit. So even I could understand it, or it basically your you want your best practice documents that are in there, kind of like the old days where, you know, we started with a with a red well, that had the bit, you know, the best contract, then we moved that online with our KVM. Team. And now this is just kind of that next version of that bigger, bigger, better class of documents. Right?

Ed Walters 6:44
I think that’s right, I think that’s a good way of understanding it. And, you know, I think when you’re when you’re looking at AI, and we talked about this before retrieval, augmented generation, all of the results coming out of generative AI are based on the data on the quality of the data on the quality of the data. And I don’t think that you would want generative AI training on everything, you know, the menu for the summer, associate lunch, the email where you are, you know, RSVP to the party or something. The 17 drafts of the pleading before it comes out, you want the superset that read well, the version of the best documents. And those are what we should be using to train generative AI, which is why the INSIGHT Plus collections can be so powerful, combined with that kind of superset of public law. And if you notice that, like this is not just American law, I mean, we’re in the US. So we sort of think that from that perspective, but Vincent AI already works in the UK and Ireland, in Spain, and the European Union, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Singapore, New Zealand, we’re rolling out war seems like every month, and so global law firms could take like, you know, not just US Senator practice, but practice around the world in the European Union with our super set there, and really produce like, brilliant first drafts, not just for the US, but anywhere in the

Greg Lambert 8:14
world. Excellent. Well, I know one of the biggest barriers since day one since November of 2022, when we started getting hands on ChatGPT. Three, it has been security concerns and protecting client data. Now I know I manage I mean, this is their bread and butter, of being able to to not just protect the data, but also to isolate the data so that things like ethical walls can be set up in in making sure that people keeping honest people honest and not being able to get to things that that they don’t want to or don’t need to get to. So how and I know you’ve we talked about this for we went on, you kind of have a script that you want to make sure that you cover this correctly. So how did you guys look at protecting it so that when you go to mine, IT security ops team, that they’re comfortable in rolling out a product like this?

Ed Walters 9:18
Yeah, I think that I think you’re right, that is the most essential piece. And you better believe that the iManage team for whom security is their bread and butter marched us through the paces to make sure that everything we do together maintains that security. So I think when the when the VFX team and the Fastcase team worked together with I managed to build this out. We wanted to, you know, overperform we wanted to really shoot the lights out on security, we want to exceed the best industry standards. And so, you know, I did make a checklist. I want to make sure that I’m hitting all the points. So first, we start with encryption. We got all of the information In all customer data or conversation logs, all text from uploaded files, and metadata is encrypted in transit. And at rest, we want to make sure that it’s encrypted through the entire process, like the best security systems are the data these stored using, it’s called a FIPS, 142 compliant algorithmic suite. But it’s like one of the most secure data suites that you can have. It has hardware security modules, and each enterprise customer, like each law firm has their own dedicated encryption master key. So if not, we’re using one key for everybody, right? You know, Jackson Walker has one scan as another, you have your own dedicated master key. And then for global firms, like you have to have some control over those keys. So firms can choose the region residency of a master keys and host them in their own self managed Amazon Web Services account. If you’re in Europe, and you need that key to stay in Europe, you can do that. If you’re in the US and want to keep it in the US soon. You can do that as well. There’s a lot to say about it. But I think it’s safe to say that every security certification that you can get, we’re trying to go load up beyond it was finished. For the security nerds ISO [27001]. Audit, we’ve got a draft certification. And the full certification is just a kind of a matter of timing. Now, we’re, we’ve finished the sock to audit and we’re in the three month sock to surveillance period. But I think maybe the last thing to say is just that, you know, we are not unlike open AI, or, you know, Google with Gemini, we’re not training our own foundation law. So everything we’re doing here is provable amended generation. It’s a little bit like a search engine. You know, if a retrieval party, we are pulling the relevant documents through a secure channel, and storing the data securely, but with those documents, we’re then passing them securely with the dedicated closed instance of the foundation model. In our case, we’re using GPT-4 Turbo right now, but we’re paying through the nose for the super secure version of it. So nothing ever goes to train that model. And we’re not treated with the data. When that transaction is done, when the prompt gets passed, we get the result. All that data is securely only accessible to the firm, not to us, not open AI, not to Google or anyone else. Okay.

Greg Lambert 12:55
All right. So now you’ve convinced my security ops team that it’s okay to do this. Now comes the really hard test of how what what would you say is kind of the biggest value of being able to do this? And what are you doing to make sure that there’s not any kind of potential bias that that’s going on? Or that you’re making sure that answers that are coming back? Or, again, grounded to the documents that, that we’ve isolated as our best practice documents? Yeah, how do you convince the lawyers now to use it?

Ed Walters 13:39
Well, I think, you know, the, the first way you’d have to do that is it just has to work. Like when you know, try to draft things with it, when you evaluate documents with when you try to figure out what comes next. What’s missing, then a contract that has to just flat out work. And this is a place where I think lawyers have been very favorably impressed. It’s why, you know, I think that there were there are more nominations this year than ever for the American Association of law libraries, new product, or like, everybody had an AI product this year. Yeah, this competing for that award. But among all of them, you know, and I always say law librarians are the most discriminating the most sophisticated consumers of these things. Among all of them. They picked Vincent AI. So I would just say, you know, the proof of that the proof is in the pudding. The proof of the pudding is in the eating maybe. And, you know, I think people have to be delighted by it. And it has to just flat out work. And I think that’s been our experience. We just did a couple of different law school, head to head Robot Wars, among the various different genealogy pools. And I’ll just say, you know, Vincent AI did very well, in terms of, you know, the kind of bias and the usefulness of it. I think, you know, we test as most as, as most software developers do, the outputs, I think we’ve benchmarked them. And I think we’ve been pretty favorably impressed with them in the testing. But I mean, American law, in some case, the law of other countries can also reflect bias, I want to be very careful about this. I think you and others have called out software manufacturers for overstating claims about gender to the AI. I don’t want to do that here. I think gender they AI is amazing. But in some sense, these transformers, the T and GPT, are really kind of predicting what the next word is going to be. And not all of the law in the world history is unbiased. And so I think this is a problem we’ll face in the profession. I think it’s it does very well, all these things, but I’ll never say it is completely unbiased. Maybe the last thing to say about it is just the usefulness of it. I think that there’s a lot of things on lawyers too. And legal information professionals do, that they can’t go through. That is just BurgerTime. I think about the document review that we did before he discovery came out, right? Is it useful to have technology assisted review for ediscovery castle with this, as one of the lawyers who did paper discovery back in the day? Anybody who’s had to do that will find it extremely useful if we can automate and mechanize than drugs were. And I will also say, you know, I’m not Panglossian about and I’m not going to say this is the solution that does everything. I always imagined legal work like a chain, right. And we can replace certain links in that chain. But the last links in that chain have to be human judgments. You have to have discriminating information professionals, when you do retrieval augmented generation, who can look at what’s going into making the answer and say include these, not this one, I don’t think this one’s useful. That’s a place where I think fits in really stands out, users can go through audit the list and say, I don’t want to include these two, but I want the rest of them. And I think it is hopefully like more incumbent than ever, that legal information professionals law librarians, paralegals researchers, and lawyers are very, very careful, they’re more discriminating than ever about those sources, you need to make sure that all of the cases exist in the world that they’re not hallucinated, you need to make them verify up, you need to check to make sure that you’re using the right work product from inside of iMatch. And so in some ways, we are automating the worst parts of the work like we did with ediscovery. But it does require and we are more sophisticated, in some ways, we’re more critical and discriminating in some ways, and these are skills that will be important for the next 20 years.

Greg Lambert 18:36
And I’m gonna I’m gonna hit you with a question that isn’t isn’t on the list. And, and hopefully, it’s not outside the scope here. But during the testing of this, was there anything that kind of stood out or surprised you it that worked better than you thought? When when you’re integrating these two products?

Ed Walters 19:00
Yeah, I don’t I don’t have a good answer from the for the iManage front. But I have a great answer. From a demo that I did with Craig Newton, who is the director of Cornell’s Legal Information Institute. We were trying to make videos and screw up. And we were offering a little bit we add the mud tires on. And so we were asking questions that there weren’t answers to, to see if we can make Vincent like make something. And so we were asking questions about to liability when unoccupied autonomous cars crash. And there’s not really any answer to that question. Right. And Craig knew it and he was trying to make it flow or create cases from the future or something.

Greg Lambert 19:51
And which can happen I hear and happens.

Ed Walters 19:56
Didn’t happen. So what happened was, Vincent AI came back concern, I don’t have any cases dealing with autonomous vehicles without occupants. But you might find interesting these analogous cases, from the 1930s when elevators stopped having operators and started running by themselves, the elevators, you used to have a person who was in there, like pulling the alarm and stopping on the fourth floor. Yeah. And at some point, we created self driving elevators. And guess what I mean, some of them had accidents. And then the question is, you know, is the elevator manufacturer liable? Is the building owner, the elevator owner liable? Is the person who gets in the self driving elevator, you know, that responsible because they knew what they’re getting into. I thought that was so interesting, like the idea that a generative AI tool could maybe effectively reason by analogy. And when I thought about it, it’s you know, it’s not really looking at keywords like we used to, it’s like MIT concepts, you know, that your database, like the concepts that are similar are really close together. Right? And the concepts of self driving accidents, I shared a little bit of conceptual DNA with elevators. I think every call

Greg Lambert 21:20
make make sense when you stand back and think about it. So alright, well, let’s, let’s jump over to the the docket alarm and integration with I manage as well. So, you know, talk to us a little bit more about how this is set up. And what what the use cases are for, for firms to kind of automate this this process of moving docket docket information directly into I manage Sure,

Ed Walters 21:50
well, I think people know, docket alarm. The idea is it will track litigation for firms. In addition to being a great research library and analytics library, searching for precedents and things like that. The specific use case here is when something new happens in the case, you get an answer to a complaint, there’s a motion filed in the case, the worst way to do it is to get an email from ECF and Pacer. And you click it and nine people get it, the first person gets the first free Look, everyone else sends an email around to everyone else in the firm to try and figure out who got it who’s got the document.

Greg Lambert 22:36
Or they just log in and pay for it. Right? The with the firm’s credit card? Yes.

Ed Walters 22:40
I mean, there are a lot of people who just pay the 10 cents per page, right? So docket alarm, kind of manage that process. But only to a point, right, so you get one, everyone gets an email with documents attached to it, you don’t have to worry about managing the first free look. And then it’s stored in docket alarm. The problem is that, you know, most I manage users and there’s a lot of them don’t want the doc and alarms, software, the the repo for those documents. And so they’re manually saving them one by one into the right client and matter. And iMac. And there are, you know, I think it’s, you know, probably 75% of the biggest 100 firms in the US use both docket alarm and iManage. And, you know, seven 810 lawyers that affirm docketing clerks, information professionals, law librarians are getting these emails. And nobody knows that someone save it, I manage.

Greg Lambert 23:45
Did I save it into the right folder? Yeah,

Ed Walters 23:48
you did. And then you have this happen scores of times a day. And so this is, I don’t think this is magical. But it’s extremely practical and useful. If you are one of the firm’s that’s using both iManage and docket alarm, when that happens, you’ll still get email, it will still be saved for even docket alarm, but it will also be saved to the client and the matter inside of iManage. He in exactly the right place, it will resolve conflicts, if there’s an update to that document, it’s quite an actually synced. If someone has the wrong version of it, it’ll be replaced by the right version of it, and all securely and nobody has to feed about it. Right. So I don’t know, I think people will tend to push like these kinds of magical AI solutions. I think this is just part of the integration that’s very practical, and very useful.

Greg Lambert 24:42
Is this again, the the cloud version of of iManage that you need to have or is this work is worth. Okay, so, so work is the just make sure I’m clear. That’s the on That’s the cloud version of vie manage, right? So

Ed Walters 25:04
this will save right into wherever you have your I manage it is in the cloud. Okay. Wherever you had your clients and matters for those filings will say directly to them.

Greg Lambert 25:16
Yeah. All right. Well, I know that I manage has their big conference today and tomorrow and, and you’re giving us a nice, early peek into this. Let’s look down the road. While you’re while you’re there at the conference, are you looking at building additional tools and relationships with with I manage that? You think you can kind of get ideas? What what may come down the road?

Ed Walters 25:45
A lot of ideas? Yeah. So I think that there’s, there’s a lot of useful integration points. I’m excited to launch these two that connect live, the New York user event for I manage. But I think these will be the first of many announcements with these integration points. And again, like just the iron of the liberation of these Crown Jewels, there’s been firms that have, you know, created their own Large Language Models that invested to create a foundation model inside the firm. You know, hugely expensive, that’s a really difficult thing to do. And then, you know, whenever there’s new stuff, once a year, once a quarter, once a day, you have to create, like an updated foundation model or something. And I can see why they might do it, right, because these knowledge assets are really important. They’re differentiators for firms. So I hope this is kind of a bridge instead of having to create your own $10 million foundation model. Vincent AI is a bridge between generative AI and your internal work product, your secret sauce, a secure bridge, a sock two compliant bridge, but a bridge that helps law firms to really use and leverage those knowledge assets, using generative AI to differentiate their services at a time where a lot of clients are saying, I want to know what your generative AI strategy is going to be.

Greg Lambert 27:21
Yeah, this this might be one of those things where you may or may have lucked out if you waited a little bit to

Ed Walters 27:33
some timers who did your homework with the epic all nighter? We should have been great. I certainly was.

Greg Lambert 27:42
A college students did that. All right, well, Ed Walters, Chief Strategy Officer at vLex, I want to thank you very much for coming in and taking the time to talk with us about the two new announcements that you have between vLex and iManage. So So Thanks. Thanks for having me, Greg. All right. And of course, thanks to all the listeners for listening to The Geek in Review. If you like what you hear, please share it with a colleague. We’d love to hear from you. So reach out, reach out to us online. LinkedIn is probably the best place to get a hold of us, Ed, if somebody wants to learn more, where should they go?

Ed Walters 28:25
LinkedIn, forward slash login forward slash Walters. I think I still have a, you know, Burner Twitter account on X, @EJWalters, but I’m with you. I think I think LinkedIn is where it’s at these days.

Greg Lambert 28:40
I think so for the legal profession. That seems to be where we’re, we’re housing right now. So and, of course, the music that you hear is from Jerry David DeCicca. So thank you, Jerry. And thanks again Ed.

Ed Walters 28:54
Thanks, Greg.

The conversation then shifts to a recent webinar by Toby Brown and Ian Wilson, where they discussed the potential impact of AI tools on law firm hours and profits. While the idea of AI reducing billable hours may seem controversial, the hosts agree that firms must adopt these tools to remain competitive. They also touch on the importance of aligning innovation with practice groups and the need for subject matter experts and people with strong interpersonal skills to drive change management.

Greg demonstrates an example of agentic AI using a tool called Crew AI. He sets up a task to search for information on a company called Take 5 Oil Change, using multiple AI agents to gather, synthesize, and report the findings. The process involves using SERPER, a Google search agent, an AI agent (Anthropic Claude), and a reporting agent. The output includes a log of the actions taken and a one-page report on the company, its leadership, and industry classification.

The hosts discuss the potential applications of agentic AI, such as quickly gathering information for client pitches or identifying legal issues. They also explore the possibility of running AI agents within secure cloud environments to address data privacy concerns. While the concept of agentic AI is still evolving, the hosts believe there is significant potential for these tools to streamline processes and enhance efficiency in the legal industry.

The episode concludes with a lighthearted mention of Greg’s AI-generated song created by UDIO about checking conflicts before going on vacation, showcasing the creative possibilities of AI tools in the legal profession.

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠

Contact Us: 

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads: @glambertpod or @gebauerm66
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠

Transcript

Marlene Gebauer 0:08
Welcome to The Geek in Review, podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal profession. I’m Marlene Gebauer,

Greg Lambert 0:14
And I’m Greg Lambert. And even though we swore we would never try to do this again, here we are, we’re going to try and do a kind of a fast catch up episode, because we actually haven’t been in the same room. In a while.

Marlene Gebauer 0:29
We’ve been on the road, both of us for, you know, either personal or professional reasons for quite some time.

Greg Lambert 0:35
Yeah. One of my professional reasons last week was to go to New York to catch a Astros/Yankees game, which was amazing, even though we lost that one

I thought we won. No, we lost that one, we won that we won the day after.

Marlene Gebauer 0:50
this was prior to the rosin issue.

Greg Lambert 0:53
yeah. Apparently, they still don’t like Altuve. They’re don’t know why.

Marlene Gebauer 1:00
He’s really the nicest person on the whole team.

Greg Lambert 1:03
But we wanted to catch up in do a couple of things, mainly was work on or just talk about our Love and LegalTech series. We had eight couples on I thought that I thought it was fantastic.

Marlene Gebauer 1:20
I really did. And I really liked your your compilation that you put out yesterday. So I think that was that was very nice. It was like I was I was telling you like, the more I see them, the more I just, like think how great it was.

Greg Lambert 1:32
Yeah, it was it was fun, because we had it was a wide variety of different couples. And but I mean, a lot of the stories kind of, you know, repeated.

Marlene Gebauer 1:44
there were a lot of similarities. That’s, you know, in terms of like, you know, it’s really necessary to communicate a lot and all the time and sort of the the work life integration, and how, you know, and it seemed to like a lot of them. It’s like, yeah, you know, we talk about work all the time. Some couples said, Okay, we try not to Yeah, and there are certain things they were lying. And well, I don’t I don’t some instances, I don’t think that I think it was true, particularly where they had other things to focus on. Yeah, so but you know, some did, but you know, some really didn’t, some are just like, you know, that’s like, this is the nicest thing to be able to have somebody in the same space and be able to talk to about, you know, the, the challenges and the good stuff, and have them really understand.

Greg Lambert 2:32
Yeah, it’s really nice. I mean, I’m I’m married to someone who’s also a librarian, even though they’re an elementary school librarian, but there are a lot of things where

Marlene Gebauer 2:40
I’m not gonna make any comments.

Greg Lambert 2:43
Yeah, but there’s a lot of code that we know, we know the language that’s involved in that. And I think a lot of our guests talked about that, that it was really nice, because you did not have to explain to your partner, the nitty gritty, nitty gritty details that were involved in what you’re doing. There was already a lot. There’s like a shorthand. I did, and you, you were not able to do this on. But the last one I did have is with Alexis, Haman and in and her husband, and I’m drawing a blank on his name all of a sudden, but there, and I put this into the little clip was, you know, just like, if, if I don’t want to talk about it, I’m just going to tell you that I owe Jeff. And he’s

Marlene Gebauer 3:32
just like, yeah, we’ll interact.

Greg Lambert 3:35
So for the audience, if you haven’t caught up on all of those, and I have looked at the stats, and I know some of you haven’t. It’s a great series. I think even if you’re if you think that doesn’t relate to you, I think it still does, it’s really about communication. And I don’t know if I’ve ever said this before, but I always like to say all problems are communication problems. And, you know, living with someone that used to work in the same industry, or some of them worked in the same company, when you’re around somebody 24/7 Working out those communication details is super super. And like

Marlene Gebauer 4:15
I said in that like it was a masterclass and communication. I mean, I was just amazed at how these guys were so mindful about, you know, sort of how they approach this. And it’s like, they’re not constantly like arguing all the time. And, you know, I also said in my LinkedIn posts, you know, it’s, it was really infectious when they’re talking to you about sort of their passion about what they do. You know, a lot of these folks that we talked to were, you know, startup people, and you know, you could really get that sense of energy. So that was pretty cool.

Greg Lambert 4:48
Yeah, yeah. All right. So let’s move on to the next segment. And actually, we just got finished watching a webinar with Toby Brown and Ian Wilson, Serviant and it so every everyone on the show if you don’t know Toby is a good friend of ours and full disclosure. Full disclosure doesn’t mean we always agree with him. But I think there was a lot of things that he talked about with AI tools and processes, eventually cutting into the our in the profits of, of law firms. I think it’s, I know, he loves the fact that it’s a little controversial saying that. But, you know, it doesn’t take a big leap of faith to think, well, if it’s only going to take me 10 minutes to do something that would normally take me 10 hours to do. And I’m billing by the hour, that’s going to be an issue with the way that we are set up as an industry and as a business.

Marlene Gebauer 5:56
And yet if you you know, as as they mentioned, you know, as Toby mentioned, like, if you don’t adopt it, somebody will somebody will and they’re, they’re gonna cut you out,

Greg Lambert 6:04
yeah, it’s a it’s gonna be interesting times. And I laugh because you and I had a presentation to the whole group, which is the Houston Association of law libraries back in April. And our presentation was we are now in the trough of disillusionment when it comes to AI. And lo and behold, Gartner comes out with an article last week. And they copied us. We are now in the trough of disillusionment in AI. So in that sounds bad when you when you think disillusionment that you know that that’s a bad thing. I think what we’re seeing is the rubber hitting the road. As far as AI tools, it’s no longer this. Wow, I think it can do this, this and this. And now we’re actually going okay, well, let’s do we’ve got our use cases. Now. Let’s actually put it in use .

Marlene Gebauer 6:59
Ans we are starting to production and like experimentation to the, you know, actual, you know, how do we implement this in a commercial way?

Greg Lambert 7:06
And so and I think in and speaking of Toby, he was in a Bloomberg article today, I believe, or yesterday, along with David Wang from some (Wilson) Sonsini, who just announced that they were implementing a contract review, AI tool that had what a 92% Accuracy Rating

Marlene Gebauer 7:32
AGENTIC process, I believe,

Greg Lambert 7:35
yeah. And hold on to that thought, yeah. If you don’t know what it agenic means. Basically, it’s the AI agents, which is kind of the the new buzz word when it comes to how you’re going to be able to leverage AI in multiple ways at once. So it’s really kind of interesting. And I’m going to actually show an example of that here in a little bit. But so what’s your thoughts on I mean, we can tie Toby’s presentation to some Sonsiniq announcement this week? Get thoughts on what you’re hearing?

Marlene Gebauer 8:20
Well, you know, I It’s, it was interesting. I was seeing seeing this because I do think this sort of agentic workflow idea is really interesting. And I spoke a little bit about this when I was at Ark National in Brooklyn. Week ago, two weeks ago. And it’s, you know, it is it is reported to be more accurate. And it’s, it can use other tools that are actually hard coded tools. So, you know, if you’re concerned about if you’re concerned about Gen AI touching your content, you know, there are ways that you can do it. So it doesn’t, for certain types of tasks. It was, I’m sorry, now, I’m blanking on his name. [Andrew Ng] is I think the last name and it was AI brain. He’s, yeah, he basically said this is this is basically agents are like the next big thing. You know, when you had the aha moment, during, when, when when Gen AI came out like this is going to be like that, because it exponentially makes it better.

Greg Lambert 9:36
And so I think before we get to the agents part of it, I do want to there was one thing that Toby mentioned right at the very end, that I think it was interesting because someone in the audience was from a personal injury. Yeah, yeah, that was interesting. And a lot of us don’t deal with personal injury lawyers and those For those style of firms, it’s different than than the big law. But Toby had mentioned, like billing structure, he was like, Hey, you’re, you know, thumbs up to you. Let’s, let’s keep your contingent fee. Yeah, go for it. Well, and that made me think, you know, one of the things that a lot of firms get a huge bump in revenue, year over year is contingency fee matters, and they tend not to take those because there’s a high risk, obviously, the amount of time that you spend, because

Marlene Gebauer 10:34
you couldn’t figure it out right, so much so easily before.

Greg Lambert 10:38
I’m wondering could there be, I mean, I could see splitting, maybe even splitting off a section of your litigators to focus on contingency fee cases, and being able to take more of those use the AI tools to really reduce the amount of time and even evaluate.

Marlene Gebauer 11:04
So because he’s litigation, investment companies, I mean, that’s what they’re doing in terms of like, okay, where’s the risk? And I think, you know, even with with using Gen AI, ai tools, I mean, you have, you have a greater capacity for trying to figure that out. And then, you know, just internally in firms, firms could do that. I was really interested about the staffing, because I think that’s been a big question. I’ve just seen a lot of kind of buzz about that, like, you know, what does that gonna look like, you know, you know, you know, we all be out of a job and, you know, on the business side, or what are the new jobs that are coming through? So I really appreciated kind of that conversation, particularly when, you know, Ian posed, well, you know, are firms really positioned to hire, you know, all of these engineers, and, you know, I think the answer was, was No, for a number of reasons, but one of which is that the top talent isn’t going to want to go to law firms, they’re going to want to go to tech companies.

Greg Lambert 12:03
yeah, well, and they want to go to tech companies, because they can get stock, well,

Marlene Gebauer 12:08
they can get stock, they, you know, there’s, again, there’s greater potential for making a lot of money. And if you kind of have that mindset, you know, if you have that entrepreneurial mindset, you know, that’s, that’s kind of how your, that’s kind of how you’re driven to sort of make things build things, and not get kind of stuck in the, you know, the quagmire of getting approvals and things like that.

Greg Lambert 12:34
No, in law firms??

Marlene Gebauer 12:38
That’s necessary. But yeah,

Greg Lambert 12:39
if salespeople think the sales cycle is really long, the development cycle on internally is even longer. So that’s going to be interesting. But yeah, you’re right to can law firms acquire the talent necessary.

Marlene Gebauer 12:54
And it was cool about like, there’s gonna be different types of talent. Yeah, there’s no subject matter

Greg Lambert 12:59
expert. Yes, I think that’s one of the things that, that they hit on a lot that I don’t necessarily think law firms are really

Marlene Gebauer 13:06
like, aligning, you know, I don’t know if you want to call it innovation, but you know, aligning innovation with practice, you know, practice groups, and kind of becoming some subject matter experts, as you said, right, you know, in that, that space,

Greg Lambert 13:18
and again, I think both of them hit on the topic that this this is, it is a technology, but it is it is not a technology issue, it is much more of a process. That’s why you’re going to see your subject matter experts getting involved. And I think the firm’s that see this as technology only are going to be just hamstrung,

Marlene Gebauer 13:44
you’re gonna need more people with more people skills as well. Because you’re going to have to have that empathy, you’re going to have to have that ability to, you know, work with people and kind of work with change management and get them you know, in using some of these tools that might be you know, on familiar with them. Yeah,

Greg Lambert 14:02
well, you’re gonna need people like in office space, or the guys like, people person. All right. Let me think, Oh, I’ve been playing. So a couple of cool tools. And I think you you I’ve sent you some examples of this. There is a tool called UDIO which is basically audio if you drop the A you on do U D I O.com which makes a which makes music. It you give it a prompt, and it will create music for you. So I don’t know I can’t remember if I mentioned this on the podcast last year, but I oversee conflicts at my firm. And one of the things that I do before summer starts, is I send out a notice to the entire firm, that if you’re going on vacation, you should let the conflicts team know. Because if you don’t check conflicts for a certain period of time, you may get into trouble. If you’re on vacation, there’s a there’s a waiver process for that. And so last year, so it’s been 2023. I had AI create a song lyrics about what would happen if you didn’t check your conflicts. This year, I had actually write a song. And I think what I’ll do is, before we have Jerry, do the outro. Do the outro. I will put in a snippet of my of my song here. It’s, it is fantastic. The Grammy Award winning No, it’s, I’ve I’ve enjoyed playing with it. I think I heard it, it’s fun. It’s fun. Yeah, it’s fun. And for something that is something like

Marlene Gebauer 16:06
very dreary, and people like, you know, I don’t want to hear that. It’s like, you know, it’s it’s light hearted and you know, makes people makes people smile and makes it you know, a lot less tedious.

Greg Lambert 16:16
So I was really trying to do a put a little snippet of that song toward the end. But I did want to want to see some agents want to see some agents, agency. All right, well, I will try for the audio only people I will be very interesting thing I will I will break things down what we’re doing, if you’re watching this

Marlene Gebauer 16:40
on YouTube, or am I looking at my looking at the screen once

Greg Lambert 16:43
I’ll put this up on the screen. So I’m going to share my screen. So let’s see if I can do this without

Here we go. So I’m gonna, I’m going to share the entire screen, I think. There we go. All right. Now let’s make sure. So I can see it over here. It’s just yeah, you can see it up on the big screen. So here’s when we when we talk about AI agents, or you may hear it referred to as agentic AI. Really, what it means is that you are able to set up task and assign those tasks to different instances of AI. And in fact, it doesn’t even necessarily have to be AI. And some of it may be a local python script, it’s that’s running that may be processing text,

Marlene Gebauer 17:48
like the tool that I was talking about before it can use pythons to do things exactly.

Greg Lambert 17:53
And this has been one of those things that I’ve been saying for months, and that that AI is going to be a layer, or maybe in some cases, multiple layers within a bigger process. So it’s not a so it’s not just AI doing everything. So what I’ve set up and I did this is just kind of a side project using Python script is we’re going to do searching on a on a company. And I think I’m going to use Take 5 oil company, I got Jiffy Lube here. So let me change that. And the only reason I’m doing this is because as soon as we’re done here, I gotta go take one of my kid’s cars and go get the oil change. So I’m going to do, I’m going to search on the company name of Take 5 Oil Change, which is the official name of it. And what this tool does is there’s a tool in here called SERPER which you can connect to, and it will do Google searches. So I’m basically going to give it some instructions. It’s going to go out and search Google for information on Take 5 oil change. So it’s going to have multiple agents. The first agent is going to be a what we call a What did I call it here? I think we call it a well, I should have this ready, but basically just an information gather. This will be my Google searcher. So it’s gonna go out it’s gonna take the instructions that I give it go out and find as much information on Take 5 oil change, and then bring that information in is going to pass that off to an agent that will then synthesize that information based on the instructions that I give Have on things I’m looking for. And here really, I’m looking for essentially three things. I want to know information about the company itself, just general information. I want to know news and legal issues that it may be facing. And I want to find out information about its board of directors or leadership within the company. And once it does that, the those

Marlene Gebauer 20:27
are three different things. So you kind of have many processes going on. Doing that to compile it together. And there’s just a difference with with an agent,

Greg Lambert 20:35
right. And the way that I’m doing this one is essentially it’s going to be doing one task at a time, however, you can have it doing multiple tasks at the same time. For the AI agent, I’m going to be using Anthropic Claude, and I’m going to be using the version that is, it’s new, but it’s one of the lesser expensive ones, haiku. I used Opus before. And I’ll get into the pricing here in a second opus, it makes a big difference, it gathers a lot more information. But Haiku, for what I’m doing here, I want to be quick, I wanted to just come back with good information that I need, the output is going to be two things. One, it’s going to have a log of everything that it’s done, which was really cool. And then to I told it, just to write a standard report, which is basically a one pager that gives me the information on the company. If it finds information on the directors, it will give me information on them. And then I asked it also to give me the best guess on what it would be for next, or an SIC code, which is the industry code. So I’m literally going to run this right now. Which is like a big no, no, yeah,

Marlene Gebauer 22:01
let’s see.

Greg Lambert 22:03
So I ran it early. Or if you do the Opus One, it could take up to 10 minutes to run because it goes through this very thoroughly. With haiku, the Haiku is much lighter and faster. And I found that it actually does it in less than a minute. And what I’ll do is I’ll go through and explain looking at the logs, some of the things that it’s done, and where I think there’s some value in a process like this. So,

Marlene Gebauer 22:35
so question for you. Like, I know, agents can check their own work, you know, they can spell check, they can check facts now. Is that something that you have to build in? Or is that something that’s sort of natural, naturally part of the process?

Greg Lambert 22:49
Yeah, so the agents that I’m using, I should have put this up front, I’m using Crew AI. And so it’s done. So I think that took less than a minute. And so crew AI has instructions that you can build into the call. And that would be? Well, one thing that you don’t want it to do is get into a loop, right? Especially if you’re paying for it. So you can set it up so that if it if it attempts a task, say five times, it can you can tell it to stop, don’t don’t do more than five times that will help prevent the loop. You can also have it go back and forth between the agents and the agent that say the agent that is writing the report. If there’s not enough information, it could go back to the information gather and say, find me more information on this particular issue. And it’s doing this all on the fly. And it’s using the large language model to help it craft what it thinks is the good output. Now, you are the way that the human that’s developing us controls it is through the prompt. And so the prompt list exactly what it is that you’re looking for, what it should review, and what would happen if it needs to review that if it’s not complete. So you still have a lot of control over what the agent does. And I always suggest that the first times that you tried to do this, run it on the cheap models, because if you do get into a loop, it’s you know, 15 cents is a lot better than $15.

Marlene Gebauer 24:38
Not a lot of questions.

Greg Lambert 24:41
All right. So let me open up I’m going to open up the log files for this. And so you just saying so, here is an opening up an edge. And essentially it’s going to go through And I’ll walk through this for the people that are audio only here, essentially it’s given me the search query here, and it’s looking for Take 5 oil change. And then it’s going to summarize each one of those new webpages that it finds based on its Google search. So in a way, it’s almost like a RAG type system in that it’s taking the information, it’s summarizing it. I’ve got the links here in as well. So here you can see it’s looking at rocket reach, which is I think, a company kind of a company, information aggregator. Here’s the Take 5 franchise information that it’s gathering

Marlene Gebauer 25:51
citations. Yeah, just in a group? Yep.

Greg Lambert 25:54
Okay. And so here, you can see where it’s found. Here’s the output agent. So it’s Take 5 oil change, and it’s actually breaking down. Here’s the leadership, here’s the CEO, here’s the president. Here’s other key executives. So it’s gathering this information. Going through and again, this is doing step by step, it’s going back and forth. With the with the multiple agents, and each one having their own task, each one, either gathering information, synthesizing the information or writing a report,

Marlene Gebauer 26:32
have you found that it goes to different levels of websites to get its information? Or is it just sort of the the top level? And

Greg Lambert 26:41
you know, I haven’t dived in on on that. I’ll have to take a look at that. So here’s one of the things here’s where it’s like, okay, it’s it’s hit this exception is it’s telling the agents that all right, now’s the time for you to start compiling this information, and writing it. Now, I’m going to show you another trick that I that I do with the log files, but let me show you the actual report. And so go.

And I’ve looked at a few here. So take five, Intel, I’ve run this a couple of times. So here’s the most recent one. So again, I told it just to write a short report is saying take the title of the report is take five oil change driving convenience and quality in the quick lube sector. Take five oil changes a leading automotive maintenance franchise that has been servicing drivers for over 35 years, founded in 1980, for over 1000 locations. It’s a key player in the quick lube industry. And then it gives a little bit more information. The keeps now it did not. And maybe because I changed the script, it did give me the next code. I found that the higher dollar version of the LLM does a better job at identifying that one. So for example, this found that it as a general automotive repair, the the more expensive LLM actually found that it was oil change, which makes a huge difference. It can make a big difference in that. So again, it’s not perfect. I just want to show what the agents can do. But I did want to do this. So I’m going to take that log file. And let me go back. So here’s the log, I’m going to just copy the entire log file. And I’m going to go and for this one, I’m going to actually use Gemini, which is the Google’s tool. And I’m just going to say review the following log file for any potential legal issues for Take 5 oil change. I see if I can move that out of the way just for a second.

And then I’m just going to literally just paste the log in. The nice thing with Gemini is it has a large context window. So even though that was multiple pages, kind of documents, you can see it. So I’m going to run this. And so there you can see everything. So it’s saying the lock does not reveal any major legal issues, however, that they can gather from the log that there’s financial performance, customer satisfaction. And so potential areas of concern, I will say that I ran this using the Opus version, the more expensive one and it located about six different legal issues that it found. So there is output differences between the different models. And so your mileage may vary. So change it change your oil, every change your LLM every 10,000 miles, right. But it but there’s just a number of things that you can do with these tools. So So again, agents is just what are

Marlene Gebauer 31:02
you using this for? Like, what were you gonna what, what’s sort of the, a

Greg Lambert 31:07
lot of this, we were talking about pitches. So if we’re looking to pitch to a new to a company, that this can get us some very quick information. So I don’t think it’s as good as what you would get from Hoover’s or a cap Capital IQ, or one of the high dollar ones. But if you’re looking for something quick, you’re looking for something current, you don’t have a lot of time, if you get one of these, you popped company and you get the output, you know, at least you can get that first step out of the way, and identify some things very quickly. So well, you got, I

Marlene Gebauer 31:51
think it’s pretty cool. Um, you know, I’m, I’m very bullish on agents at the moment, having having learned more about them. And, you know, I, you know, I like the fact that this sort of does multiple things for you. I like the fact that it, I mean, this one doesn’t, but it can check its work, you know, because again, the you know, what are the the hang ups is the, you know, the consistency and the accuracy like that, that is always that just continues to be a problem with just using sort of straight LLM models. And also, the security now, you’re running this, you’re running this outside your firewall, right? Yeah. But I know you can run them inside your firewall.

Greg Lambert 32:36
Yes. So one of the things that that we that I have tested and I’m speaking as Greg Lambert not as the Chief Knowledge Officer my opinions are my own my opinions are my own is that you can you can run LLM open source LLM comes on a laptop, it can be extremely slow, depending on what your laptop is, where I’m where I’m seeing some potential, and that is probably and running them in a in a cloud, secure cloud environment. So if you’re in Azure, you’re in Amazon’s web services, and it’s secure. You know, for pennies an hour, you can run LLMs for use cases,

Marlene Gebauer 33:34
like yours. I mean, I’m guessing you could batch it to like me, since this is multi step. I’m guessing you could ask it to do multiple ones at the same time.

Greg Lambert 33:42
Yeah, I can totally see that. You could do that. Right now. I’ve just got this one set up to do one at a time, but it’s just more just for a sample of

Marlene Gebauer 33:52
change instructions. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool.

Greg Lambert 33:56
Very, you know, I think there’s a lot of potential. I know, there’s going to be a you know, there’s a lot of press out there on agentic AI, which even I have known what agents were. It just doesn’t sound right to me.

Marlene Gebauer 34:14
You know, it’s like when when you’re talking about it, like it’s actually you get tongue tied on it a little bit, too. It’s like, sometimes

Greg Lambert 34:20
AGENTIC. Yeah. Yeah. So all right. I think that’s,

Marlene Gebauer 34:28
that’s good. Great, great live session.

Greg Lambert 34:30
Yeah. Now Now let’s test you to see if you can do the outro. No.

Marlene Gebauer 34:36
Alright, let’s try it. Well, we don’t say thank you to the guest. So it’s like, thanks to you, our listeners for taking the time to listen to the podcast. If you enjoy the show, share it with a colleague. You can reach me at on LinkedIn, and you can reach you on LinkedIn.

Greg Lambert 34:54
LinkedIn is pretty much all we are and yeah,

Marlene Gebauer 34:56
lately I was like we you know, we were doing all the other ones and I’m like, Can I really don’t look hadn’t any more sorry. LinkedIn has it.

Greg Lambert 35:04
All right. And so, again, Marlene, thanks for this impromptu session. And the music

Marlene Gebauer 35:13
that and as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David DeCicca that we’re going to hear a little bit of music from Greg, a little bit. Thank you, Jerry.

Greg Lambert 35:21
Bye,

Alexis and Jeff first met in Cleveland, Ohio, while Jeff was a graduate student and Alexis was an undergrad. Their paths diverged as they pursued different careers – Jeff initially considering a PhD in religion and Alexis exploring art history. However, life had other plans, and they both found themselves drawn to the legal profession. Jeff stumbled into law school and graduated into the Great Recession, which led him to become a discovery professional. Alexis, influenced by her father’s innovative approach to his law practice and title insurance company, as well as her mentor, civil rights attorney Jacqueline Green, decided to pursue a law degree at Temple University.

As the couple navigated their careers, they faced challenges and opportunities that brought them closer together in the legal technology space. When Jeff took a job in California, Alexis decided to “infiltrate” the industry, bringing her passion for improving efficiency and building better client relationships to her roles. Their shared experiences and different perspectives on innovation and technology lead to engaging discussions and occasional disagreements, but ultimately strengthen their bond.

Alexis and Jeff emphasize the importance of being well-resourced in their current roles, which allows them to tackle novel challenges and collaborate with talented colleagues. They find excitement in their work, whether it’s being at the forefront of client relationships or finding creative solutions to complex problems.

When asked about their advice for couples considering working in the same field or together, Alexis stresses the importance of being friends with your partner and being able to picture a respectful relationship even in the worst-case scenario (we made a music video about this part of the conversation!). Jeff echoes this sentiment, emphasizing the need for genuine curiosity about one another’s lives and the value of giving each other space when needed.

As Alexis and Jeff continue to navigate their love and legal tech journey, their story serves as an inspiration for couples seeking to balance their personal and professional lives in an ever-evolving industry.

Check out Jeff’s band, Glowing Burns on Spotify and other music streaming services.

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠

Contact Us: 

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads: @glambertpod or @gebauerm66
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠

Transcript

Greg Lambert 0:04
Welcome to The Geek in Review the podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal profession. I’m Greg Lambert and I am going solo this week. Marlene, has a day job that sometimes gets in the way of our recording. So I’m stepping in for her. But this week for our Love and Legal Tech feature, we have with us Alexis Hayman, who’s director of business development at Consilio. And, Jeff, make sure I get this right, Jeff, Jeff Niemczura, who is Discovery Attorney at Google. Jeff Did I did I come close to that? Niemczura?

Jeff Niemczura 0:42
Nailed it.

Greg Lambert 0:44
All right. Perfect. Is this is going to going to be getting off to a great start. So Alexis, and Jeff, welcome to The Geek in Review.

Alexis Hayman 0:50
Thank you.

Greg Lambert 0:51
So I wanted to Alexis, so I’ll start with you. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you do there at Consilio?

Alexis Hayman 1:00
Yeah, so I’m actually fairly new at Consilio. But my role is to develop new partnerships, relationships with both the law firm side and corporate in house practice, for concilium. Consilio is a global leader in people process and technology, legal services, roots are in ediscovery. But we also have an incredibly robust advisory and flex talent placement. So it’s really great role to get to know the current state legal practice and find something you’ll be able to offer those solutions that are really impactful, sort of a problem for solutions following model, which is great. And so I’m just out here, well, I’m out there in the Bay Area. Right now, just opening those doors and getting to know the industry. Right? They’re

Greg Lambert 1:52
I was gonna say you’re so new, have you even seen your offices yet?

Alexis Hayman 1:55
Yeah. My team is amazing. They’ve been so generous to make time to spend with me. So it’s been very, very cool.

Greg Lambert 2:05
Terrific. Jeff, tell us a little bit about what you do there at Google.

Jeff Niemczura 2:11
Sure. I’m a discovery attorney. I advise all things discovery as part of a large team of in house attorneys. I primarily focus these days on regulatory litigation and investigations. But I’ve had the opportunity to work with all sorts of general litigation, patent employment, all sorts of things and to apply technology and workflows and to try and get sound advice to our outside counsel and a very busy docket.

Greg Lambert 2:36
Well, before we get into your story, for those that are watching the video here, tell us where you are. Because I see palm trees, I see mountains, I see desert.

Alexis Hayman 2:46
So yeah, we’re a long way from the Bay Area where we’re usually rooted, but we’re out in greater San Bernardino County in a little area village. Like area, unincorporated area. No, no. You informally as Wonder Valley. Definitely recommend it for anyone who’s visiting out the Joshua Tree area. We put down some roots here during COVID. And it’s become we have a little cabin out here. And we’re doing our spring break with our kids and, and one of our kids brands. It’s it’s just some other friends are coming to visit. This is our like, this was my dream to come to the desert. Awesome.

Greg Lambert 3:27
Well, it looks terrific. And this is the perfect time of the year to to be out there before it gets too hot.

Alexis Hayman 3:33
Alexis

Greg Lambert 3:42
Get the proper shade. Yeah, yeah, my my wife is the same way she has taught me she uses an umbrella as a sunscreen. And she’s taught me to walk in her shadow. That way, you know, she doesn’t. She makes sure that she gets the sun blocked off her. So, tell me a little bit Jeff. How did two of you meet?

Jeff Niemczura 4:02
We met in the old fashioned way, in person

Greg Lambert 4:06
No online dating?

Jeff Niemczura 4:08
We’ve known each other long enough that that wasn’t really in the cards.

Alexis Hayman 4:12
When I met you. I was like, Oh, you have internet at your house?

Jeff Niemczura 4:17
I was I was a graduate student and she was an undergrad. And we met at a stress to include that I don’t think it was officially either a bar or a restaurant. It was more like the ground floor of an apartment building that served drinks. It’s a very, very college town sort of thing

Alexis Hayman 4:36
in Cleveland, Ohio,

Jeff Niemczura 4:37
in Cleveland, Ohio, near the campus of Case Western Reserve University. And I was immediately fascinated by her. It took a little bit longer on her side of the equation. So we were friends for quite a long time and and got real close as people before you know long before law

Alexis Hayman 4:56
school or anything like that. I thought I was going to You go to school for art history for art restoration, and didn’t really have any qualifications to do that. But it looked really great to go. And there you were going to go be a PhD in religion. And

Jeff Niemczura 5:12
neither of those things happened.

Alexis Hayman 5:14
Because yeah, my father’s

Greg Lambert 5:16
life gets in the way.

Alexis Hayman 5:18
Well, Ed Hayman got in the way, my dad, this is you’ll probably hear us refer to him quite a bit. But he, the late Edward Hayman was an enormous influence on both of us, sort of the patron saint of our early day.

Greg Lambert 5:35
So well, Marlene is gonna gonna regret not being on this, because Case Western is where she went to law school.

Alexis Hayman 5:41
Oh, wow. That’s Jeff went to law school.

Greg Lambert 5:44
And so you were probably there at different times together. So. And I know, tell us a little bit about, you know, how this progressed, and then how you got away from doctrine in religious studies and art degree to where you are now, how did you kind of wind your way into the, we’ll call it the legal tech business?

Jeff Niemczura 6:06
For me? Yeah, as Alexis mentioned, I was finishing up my master’s degree, trying to get ready for these doctoral programs, had not actually done a survey of the job market and the actual opportunities out there, and started having practical conversations right around that time, and realized, now this, I don’t actually want this enough. And I’m having a really hard time learning ancient Greek. So I sort of just stumbled into law school the way I think a lot of focused people who struggle with STEM do. And so it wasn’t a person who who landed in, in law school with a particular dream or goal, it was a practical choice, which in retrospect, was a really good way to approach that, particularly because I graduated into the Great Recession, where we had to be really creative with the job market. So I have no regrets whatsoever. And I don’t know how far you want to go on the story at the time. But as I said, I graduated into a really difficult job market. And that really was the impetus for how I became a discovery professional. Basically, I followed the, you know, whatever you are be a good one mantra and did my very best and created a career out of that. And we can dig in more on that. But I’ll let Alexis answer her side of the question.

Greg Lambert 7:23
Yeah. Alexis said, How did you wind your way into law?

Alexis Hayman 7:26
Yeah. So I had always worked in my dad’s practice and in his businesses, plural. He owned a owned, operated a fairly large title insurance company in Cleveland, Ohio, Rockwell Title. And I was maybe five or six when he started it, where I was pushing in the old Apple computers, because his idea was, hey, we’re going to bring computers into this, we’re going to, we don’t have to do this. We don’t have to be miserable. That was sort of his, his mantra was you don’t have to be miserable. And he’d actually brought these solutions to his non current employer, which was one of the big national companies. And this knew this doesn’t make any sense. And he was like, I’ll just do it by myself. I’ll just do it on my own. And he was he was not someone who could really work for other people. And he could barely work with other people. But he could work. So yeah, I had just kind of been very aligned with his vision for having autonomy over how I spent my days. And so as a as I was progressing through school, and I met Jeff and I started to sort of mature into into a vision for my adult life. I actually had the wonderful fortune to be now a now incredibly prominent civil rights attorney Jacqueline Green at it was now a partner at Freeman Gilbert. But we were just old classmates together. And she was an enormous influence as far as you know. Having me keep some mindset towards contributing to the world around me. And so I hope that she hears this because she’s just an incredibly balancing influence in my life. And as I was graduating, you know, I’m thinking, Okay, I want to have some autonomy, I want to have some kind of insight about how the world operates. I want to be able to have impact. And, you know, between Jacqueline and my dad saying, you know, you get this JD, you don’t have to, you know, does your Do you want to do the lawyer thing, but if you get this, you’re… I was 23. It’s three years of your life, just get through it. And so I went to Temple University, which is a big public interest School, which is incredibly motivating to me. And I, I understand that legal tech often is very far afield, especially at the moment from a lot of the public interest work. But, you know, there’s, there’s a lot, there’s a lot of opportunity, there’s a lot of opportunity. And it was really, it became prominent in my life, it was always the idea that you don’t have to be miserable while you’re working you there are tools that can make life better? And how can you make the world better around you? Were the two kind of guiding principles for me. And how did I get in? Specifically, oh, my now like, firmly?

Greg Lambert 10:03
How did you not go and take over your dad’s practice? And that’s where you are now?

Alexis Hayman 10:10
So I did do a lot of I did some community building, I worked for some prominent campaigns, including the Obama 2012 campaign, with that same kind of mindset of how can I use my skills that I’ve learned in law school and my passion for the world around me. And even in the Obama campaign, they had started to use some some really cool database technologies that were directed to the end user. So things powered by PeopleSoft. Which if you’re like, really old school, tech, kind of remember. And I did take a lot of my dad’s work. I worked on a lot of with a lot of his clients on their legal and non legal issues. But my father passed away, and I shipped and I had a baby right after we had a baby, I guess. Right after. And I did say, Okay, well, it’s time to It’s time. Ed’s gone, it’s time to do my own thing. I started taking cases on my own. I actually didn’t even bother to get licensed in Ohio until then. And I immediately was hit with huge discovery. Just, you know, I started taking some plaintiff side employment cases, and asking for all this discovery, because I was told by my managing attorney, he has this like, we’re going to really push them. But then I didn’t know how to review my, what was handed Well, I didn’t know what to do with what I asked for. And luckily, I had Jeff, who kind of explained, this is how we review documents here. And gave me a recommendation to look at Everlaw, which was so guided to the end user, and so developed, so well crafted for,

Jeff Niemczura 11:44
which was very new at that time, you know, those that’s really disruptor SAS companies were it was really exciting at that time. Because, I mean, we were talking about this earlier, and the balance of using technology to actually make life easier, and to make more room for what really requires, you know, personal touches, thoughtful workflows, interactions, you know, we’re always talking about what’s the state of the technology we use now? And how can how can it really add benefit to what needs to get done. So that was interesting. And then I’ll take ownership of this part. She’s just developing. She’s just developing doing this practice. And, and just as she’s getting running on it, I was offered a job in California, that was hard for us to turn down. So I’m sorry that I uprooted your practice.

Alexis Hayman 12:40
I’m really glad it’s good to be on the public record. So well, and many thanks to Karen Groedel. Groedel and Associates, who took this huge chance on me, gave me an opportunity to sit in a law firm for the first time. As an outdoor cat, You can’t imagine how challenging it was I would get up have to drive to an office every day. But Karen Groedel and Matt Grimsley were just doing they they were so such great mentors and so encouraging of my sense of, we can do things better, we can do things better. And would constantly let me know that, you know, the ways that I had improved our efficiency. Let me talk to our clients more, let me build better relations with our clients, which then let me do better discovery because I would find some things very quickly, talk to my client turn around, look for the next thing. And it was really, you know, that process building was really cool.

Jeff Niemczura 13:32
So fortunately, we had a template for making those sorts of decisions. Because we had been in Philadelphia, I was initially Barton in Pennsylvania. And so the way I really got into discovery work was I was living in Ohio with a Pennsylvania license, and my options were limited, and we had a baby. So that’s I ended up I started on with a review vendor at the time. And I went through this whole experience of learning this technology, learning these workflows, integrating myself with this sort of growing industry. And so then, several years later, after I had been through a couple of law firms, I took this job in California, thank you so much for making such a big change. We had a template for what what do you do when you’re in a new place, and you’re not licensed? And, to her immense credit, Alexis was like, Well, I’m going to infiltrate your industry Jeff. And, really has been on this really targeted and thoughtful trajectory to really understand the whole business of electronic discovery and all of its ancillary characters. And it’s had this really wonderful, you know, benefit of bringing us together in a professional way that we hadn’t experienced before. And, you know, we’re operating sort of in different, you know, areas of the same game. And it leads to, like, really nice, thoughtful conversations, understanding each other. We don’t have to bridge that gap that maybe other couples do who aren’t sharing that space. And it’s, for us, at least, it’s been a really a really positive thing that keeps us close.

Greg Lambert 15:10
And it sounds like the way that just from listening to the conversation here, is that you guys are identifying certain issues, using your lawyer hat to spot the issues when it comes to discovery. And then you’re applying your previous experience to say, Okay, here’s, here’s the issue, here’s some options that to work toward. Because a lot of times, especially now, you’re using it to to solve a problem. And now they’re people are coming up with these great solutions, and then going out and searching for the problem. So it sounds like the benefit that you’ve had is being able to kind of bounce ideas off of each other and saying, Hey, here’s the issue. I’m coming up with how have you looked at this before? Is that kind of?

Alexis Hayman 15:58
Absolutely. There’s, there’s no better example than I mean, a lot of what I work in is very bread and butter. And it’s and I don’t I mean, we full stop. We don’t really talk about our individual work life that much. But we talk about the industry a lot, because I know what I do, he knows that he does, but I want to think about the future. So I think the big place that we talk, we’ve been talking about AI a lot. And about how like right? The solution, for problem. Yeah, for problems that might not be there yet. And it’s a stepping stone. The use of AI requires some foundational understanding that I think is still very lacking, and also requires just a a buy into technology that’s still that we’re still developing. And so

Jeff Niemczura 16:52
Yeah, well, and it’s weird, because all the technology that I’ve used throughout all my years of practice has been oriented toward, you know, basically, cost centers, you know, let’s let’s use this technology to get this done as efficiently as possible. In the best of circumstances, particularly from the client side, let’s save money, let’s Let’s you and it’s pretty siloed right? You know, you’re it’s not a commercial tool that you’re also making money from unless, unless you’re selling it and then that’s your business. But with with the development of AI which is and can be so close to discovery workflows. With it also being this massive potential money maker. It really raises really difficult questions and issues about how we’re using it and how we’re oriented toward it. And how our use in say litigation compares with with its use On the business side, well,

Alexis Hayman 17:45
we talked about a lot is like the human element. So I spend a lot. So I, this is my first business development role before this, I was on the customer 60 called Customer Success. What do you do with the client? Once you once you’ve sort of had them buy in? How do you do change management? How do you train them? How do you keep that? Keep the client motivated to use technology? Usually, they’ve been doing something that worked okay. How do you get them to stick with this, this great solution? So I, I’m sort of coming in differently. I don’t come in. We talk about the trenches a lot. I don’t come in from this, like, I survived. Being up for 48 hours, I came in with a How can we do this better? How can we avoid getting in the trenches? And that that’s not just the tooling. It’s also how do you manage the people on the other end? How do you manage the end user? Like I said, I started kind of falling in love with this space through Everlaw’s innovation and in End User and User Experience. And so with AI, it’s like, you can’t it’s not just the tool, you have to have a thorough understanding. Well, you and I talked about that a lot. You have to know, understand the tool that you’re using and legal practice. Yeah.

Jeff Niemczura 18:49
Well, I mean, how do you that’s the new skill set is how do you write prompts, for Large Language Models, because garbage in garbage out?

Alexis Hayman 18:54
Well, before you write prompts, you have to know what you’re talking to.

Greg Lambert 18:58
There’s a whole umbrella of new new ways of kind of just even looking at at the issues anymore. So let me let me switch gears a little bit. Because, you know, we, we’ve sat around the campfire here and sing the Kumbaya, how great it is working in the same industry, but I’m sure there’s some challenges, as well. I know you guys work together a little bit in your dad’s law firm. And, and so how is it now that you’re in kind of the same, you know, big umbrella industry? What are some challenges that you kind of run into along the way?

Alexis Hayman 19:38
I think you just almost had a taste of it. Like, no, you have to think about the people like don’t do the scenes, dickering that happened, every, like we mentioned, Jeff was tracking this, basically a philosophy PhD. And I was like, I want to talk about like how art came in, like, what we should do with it. We, we can get into fights where we like leave the room from each other, because we have different ideas about how, where technology should go in the future. It’s all it’s very, it’s always like, kind of hypothetical stuff.

Jeff Niemczura 20:14
I think you just almost had a taste of it. Like, no, you have to think about the people like don’t do the scenes, dickering that happened, every, like we mentioned, Jeff was tracking this, basically a philosophy PhD. And I was like, I want to talk about like how art came in, like, what we should do with it. We, we can get into fights where we like leave the room from each other, because we have different ideas about how, where technology should go in the future. It’s all it’s very, it’s always like, kind of hypothetical stuff.

Alexis Hayman 20:57
Yeah, I think it just comes down to seeing it different. Yeah, because I think about innovation a lot. And you’re, very different your life, your work life is. And I talked about this at work a lot, that all of the work that comes out of all these technologies, and all these tools is ascribed to the attorney. It’s not, no one says, We can’t go to a judge and say, Oh, this discovery was incomplete because of Relativity failed in some way. You know, yeah, it’s attorneys work product

Greg Lambert 21:18
well, in the same way with AI. So if the AI is issue, if somebody does something wrong, it’s the attorneys issue.

Jeff Niemczura 21:25
It was on the pleadings.

Alexis Hayman 21:26
Yeah. Right. And I, you know, being on the tech side, I can be a little bit more bold and imaginative about where we can go and it can get frustrating, like, oh, I read this thing. And it looks really great. And I have this idea for this. What if, what if we use this tool in this way? And sometimes Jeff can be a wet blanket about it.

Greg Lambert 21:43
Yeah, I think we had a guest on a couple of weeks ago that said, the what was it the five worst things you can hear a client say is “wouldn’t it be cool if it” and then goes off into a thing? So yeah, it’s kind of I mean, it’s kind of nice that you can have these, you know, arguments and still at the end of the day, still Live your life. But, and I had someone on a separate podcast I did for the firm that recently said something about. And he’s a doctor, just saying that it was really important to have opposing views in the room. And it’s really hard to get those opposing views in the room because usually everyone’s so busy. That, you know, even if they’re very passionate about it, it’s very hard to get get that. So I think there’s a good opportunity there with the two of you having kind of two paths of how you approach problems of being able to bounce those off of each other, even if it means bouncing it from a different room. But it’s definitely a lot of benefit after after the blood pressure comes back down, I imagine.

Jeff Niemczura 22:52
Yeah. And honestly, if I make a fool in front of myself with her, it’s less likely I do it at work. So I’m grateful for that.

Greg Lambert 23:03
So what happens when you’re you guys go to a reception or something or you’re out? And people learn that the you’re a couple? Is it? I mean, is it pretty well known? What what’s kind of the reaction you get from people when you tell them?

Alexis Hayman 23:17
So we’re relatively new to the bay? I think it’s very, we were Ohio was different. Cleveland is different. It’s a small town, like and I’ve been there my whole life. And we knew everybody and nobody cared what we did. And nobody cared. We were doing anything all that interesting to to our local music scene. So nobody wanted the detail. But now it’s it seems like a lot more about social life happens at Bar Association. Like mixers itself?

Jeff Niemczura 23:43
Yeah, I feel like most people most people have. Oh, that’s cool. Yeah, sort of reaction to it. I think we’ve done a good job of filtering out naysayers from our spheres.

Alexis Hayman 23:54
Yeah, Jeff only wants yes men in the room now. Now. No, I think people think it’s just kind of cool. And I think people assume that there is more current synergy than there is. Our work is just so very different. And especially your work is so much more like full litigation. And I’m thinking a lot more about the technology. And it’s just, it’s just very different. So when I try to explain like really more when we talk about like the news. It was a little bit different when I was with, with, with Everlaw you would ask me to do like how to give you tech support. That was when it was more interesting. Yeah. But now and we were just sort of delighted by it.

Jeff Niemczura 24:34
Yeah. And as I’m thinking about it, I feel like because because we sort of entered into this work in in tandem with COVID. I think it’s less unusual for people, because a lot of people even if they have very different jobs suddenly found themselves sharing office space at home with their spouses. So I think people are a little less, a little less curious, or were pressing about that, because they’re also used to it themselves. So I don’t think there haven’t been a lot of

Alexis Hayman 24:57
I think that there are a lot of couples, though, around where both have found their way into this, I think because it is really interesting. And if you’re in the legal space, it ends up it’s an enticing kind of work to get into because you can be innovative in a way you can’t

Jeff Niemczura 25:12
And there’s ton of opportunity because it’s it’s changing so much. There’s always new roles and challenges that you can so I think people who are, who are enterprising about how they want to spend their professional time, like often gravitate here that lends itself to creativity in a nice way.

Greg Lambert 25:27
we have found once we kind of sprouted this idea of doing the and the love and legal tech series that there’s a lot more people out there and we hadn’t anticipated. So let me ask about the kind of the, we’re calling it the work life integration. So when you come home at night from from work, do you have like a rule that says, you know, work stays here? Or is it how do you balance that so that it’s not kind of a 24/7 thing, and I imagine having a couple of kids helps do that.

Alexis Hayman 26:01
I was gonna say we talked about so much else. I mean, we do talk about innovation a lot and then the work piece. I think one of the for me, one of the nicest things in my work, you know, sometimes I’ll it will be like 9:30 in the morning and I’ll be like, I just can’t wait till it It’s nine o’clock PM, and we can just turn on Beavis and Butthead. And, like, not just not do anything anymore, or genuinely enjoy spending time together doing any other activity. Yeah, we don’t even know like,

Jeff Niemczura 26:31
yeah, we’re not real rule setters about that. I think that I think that they don’t think we need to Yeah, professional talk is just part of the soup. On the rare occasion that that one of us raises, you know, a frustration or a curiosity about work, and the other one’s just not up for it. We just changed the subject, it’s

Alexis Hayman 26:47
No you, you listen, you like performatively, listen, and I’m out here. I don’t carry

Greg Lambert 26:53
Do you go to your safe spot in your head or safe place in your head,?

Alexis Hayman 26:59
I go back, and then resave he does more direct. I’ll just be doing it. I’ll be doing something else. And I’ll just say just so you know, I don’t really care right now.

Jeff Niemczura 27:09
I know, I love that.

Alexis Hayman 27:10
I know you do.

Jeff Niemczura 27:12
I like things that are definitive.

Greg Lambert 27:16
So what are you guys doing? And I know, Alexis, you’re pretty new in your position. But, you know, what are you guys doing in your individual jobs that you find that you’re finding exciting lately.

Jeff Niemczura 27:29
One of the things I’ve really liked about the work I’m doing currently is it’s, it’s often novel, there’s often something very new and therefore kind of intense going on with the things I’m able to work on. So I’m never bored. There’s always some creative solution that needs to be found. And I work with a, with a really great group of people that are who are great to collaborate with. And so I’m in a lucky position where I know that I’m going to have something interesting to work on every day. And I know that I trust my colleagues and enjoy being with them. And that’s my basic answer to that.

Alexis Hayman 28:02
Yeah, well, I do feel like we’re both very lucky to be in roles that are well resourced, and, you know, there isn’t. I don’t know, the last time I was like, grumpy about work, it’s, I think we’re both like, Australian Shepherd dogs. You know, I think we’re both like people that thrive with a lot to do, and a lot of resources to do it. And we’re very lucky to be in roles where we have that. For me, it’s, like I said, it’s very cool to be at the, on the front end of that client relationship, at the start of the customer experience and the client journey, the customer journey, right? You know, it’s sort of like getting my hands on the wheel a little bit more. And, and I’m coming at it from a place of really thinking hard about other colleagues who’ve been in this in these business development roles, asking just so many questions, not just about how they do what they do, but what the experience was like for them, how they make decisions and and becoming not only, you know, my roles as my role and customer successes as a trusted adviser, but I also was able to be as functionally an advisor to the business development team. And I would sometimes get dinged on the no dinged, but like, boy, Alexis really likes those salespeople. But I thought it was interesting how they were approaching these these relationships for at the very start, and so I would let them know hey, this is what it’s this is what the resources are downstream. This is how I, this is how I think you should scope it, just given what I can see from where I am. And being able to jump over the other side. Is it’s exciting. Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s different than being the copilot, you know, the navigator copilot is nerve racking. I’m not bored. I’m not as rehearsed at those conversations. I could do you know, Intro trainings and all that onboarding program and write an onboarding program in a week for any tool, but now it’s, I find myself feeling very

Greg Lambert 29:53
well, now we’re at the point where we normally ask our crystal ball question, but we’ve been we’ve rebranded it for the love and legal tech series as our Valentine’s questions. So what advice would you give another couple who are considering working in either the same field or working together in the same business? Alexis, let’s start with you.

Alexis Hayman 30:14
Yeah, it’s my advice to people who are thinking about getting married. Right. Two pieces of advice. You got Have fun, this person better be your friend. Like, this should be someone who is truly your friend that you enjoy being with that you have fun with. And the flip side to that is advice my my mother gave me, which was marry somebody that you can see yourself divorcing, which is a tough thing to hear.

Greg Lambert 30:41
What did she mean by that?

Alexis Hayman 30:42
I know everyone’s like, What do you mean, to me, it makes perfect sense. Somebody that you can see you can picture it, even the worst possible outcome and that person remaining upstanding character, and being kind to you and never holding their commitments and to you hostage to some some performance. And my parents are, were had the best of worse on the planet, they showed, never wavered in their respect for each other. I think partnership and collaboration, whether it’s work or a marriage, or anything could could have could end in a way that you don’t expect. And having the comfort of saying even in the worst case scenario, this person will respect me and still uphold their commitments to me, because work is very personal. This is why we fight about it. But it is very personal. And that again, called a shout out to Karen Groedel. When I first interviewed with her she work is so many people’s identity. And when you are discriminated at work, or you have a problem at work, or you have you know, it cuts so deep. And so to bring your partner into that is, I think very serious. And something you should consider not just from a practical angle, but you know, it’s not it’s not just you can’t clock out. It’s part of your identity. That was a pretty heavy answer. But I hope that it’s helpful.

Jeff Niemczura 31:59
I love that answer. Yeah.

Alexis Hayman 32:01
I’m a little bit stunned drunk right now.

Greg Lambert 32:06
Jeff, what, what’s your advice?

Jeff Niemczura 32:08
It’s gonna be a little redundant, which is probably a good thing is it’ll show that we’re, you know, philosophically aligned. But you have to, you have to be friends. And I think what I’ll drill down on with that is, you have to be curious about one another. You have to want to know what’s going on. And if you do it, right, working in the same area lends itself to that, because you have a leg up on understanding what your partner is doing with her time, and what she cares about and what her challenges might be. But to me, it’s, it’s, and so of course, it’s a struggle, right? But, but giving your time and attention in a real way, like developing a true curiosity for what is going on with my partner in all aspects of your life. That’s how you feel understood. That’s how you keep and establish trust. And I think that, as Alexis said, the answer is the same. If you’re talking about getting married or working together, it’s just compounded a little bit. If you’re, if you’re aligned to if you’re entering to that, and I think that’s it, right, like no escape, right? That’s, that’s, that’s the tough risk there. Right? You’re always together anyway, you might have a family together. Now you work together. where’s the where’s the vows? Right. And so we do a great job I think of, of trusting each other and having true curiosity for each other’s lives. And I think that’s really important. We also do a great job of giving each other space, we’re sitting in this, this cabin in the desert that we have, and we’ll go on solo trips here and give the other one some room. And, and I think that sort of thing, just understanding what, what each person needs, what they’re going through and being a true trusted support. It’s stuff we should be doing anyway.

Greg Lambert 33:45
Excellent. Well, Jeff Niemczura and Alexis Hayman, I want to thank both of you for coming on The Geek in Review and sharing your love and legal tech story. Thank you.

Jeff Niemczura 33:54
It’s a pleasure. Thank you.

Alexis Hayman 33:56
Thank you.

Greg Lambert 33:59
And of course, thanks to everyone listening for listening to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoy the show, please share it with a colleague. We’d love to hear from you. So reach out to us on social media I can be reached at @glambert or glambert on X or more likely on LinkedIn. Marlene can be reached @gebauerm on X or Marlene Gebauer on LinkedIn. Alexis and Jeff if people wanted to learn more about you, we’re good place for them to reach out?

Alexis Hayman 34:31
On LinkedIn is great. I’m a LinkedIn girlie, my favorite social media platform. Alexis Haman there’s only a couple of us

Jeff Niemczura 34:40
The same. And if you really want to dig Deep you can look up my musical project glowing burns. glowing burn.

Greg Lambert 34:47
I’ll have to look to look that up. So. All right. Well, thank you both and speaking of music, the music from love and legal tech is from Jerry David DeCicca and his partner Eve Searls. So thanks Jerry and Eve. All right, thanks, guys.

Jeff Niemczura 35:02
Thanks Greg

Tromans observes that while the legal industry is generally enthusiastic about the potential of generative AI, there is a stark contrast in the perception of its impact outside the legal bubble. He believes that the technology will have a significant effect on the legal sector, but it will be mostly benign, with the potential to add value to the profession once the hype and cynicism subside.

The key to real transformation, according to Tromans, lies in integrating AI throughout the entire business process, rather than using it as a mere helper tool. This integration should encompass document management systems, knowledge management capabilities, templates, and precedents. However, he emphasizes that the current economic model of the legal industry must adapt to the technology for true transformation to occur.

Tromans also discusses the upcoming Legal Innovators California conference in San Francisco, which will focus on generative AI, standardization, and the infrastructure needed to support the evolving legal landscape. The event will feature speakers from law firms, in-house legal departments, academia, and major tech companies.

Looking ahead, Tromans believes that the biggest challenge for the legal industry over the next two to five years will be the willingness of clients and law firms to embrace change and rethink their processes. He argues that the industry could have adopted AI-driven solutions years ago, but the impetus to do so was lacking. The success of this “gentle revolution” will depend on the ability of clients and law firms to challenge assumptions and adapt to the changing technological landscape.

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠

Contact Us: 

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads: @glambertpod or @gebauerm66
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠

Transcript

Marlene Gebauer 0:07
Welcome to The Geek in Review. The podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal profession. I’m Marlene Gebauer,

Greg Lambert 0:14
And I’m Greg Lambert. Well, this week we have a talk with Richard Tromans. Who is Richard, you’re looking great for coming off a sabatical. And you’ve just jumped right back into your work there at Artificial Lawyer. So Richard, thanks for taking time away from all this writing I’m sure that you’re doing to talk with us here at The Geek in Review.

Richard Tromans 0:37
Yeah, then thank you. Greg. Thank you, Marlene. Yeah, it’s, it’s already incredibly busy. I think I published four stories today. So Artificial Lawyers is back.

Greg Lambert 0:48
Yeah. I think I’ve published four stories this year.

So Richard, the big question on everyone’s mind is, what the heck does someone do for a year and a half on a sabbatical?

Marlene Gebauer 1:03
Yeah, we want to know,

Richard Tromans 1:05
Easy is easy, easy. Honestly, it feels like I’ve been away from. If you’ve told me I’d been away for two months. I would say that kind of realistic. That’s how it feels. When really fast. So I did a bit of traveling to California, obviously, as you as you’ll hear a bit more about California later in the show. I’ve been writing a book of fiction, not not about legal, and may write a book that looks like I’ve been asked several times by publishers. So you wrote a book about legal tech. And I may well,

Legal tech fiction?

but instead know what I did. I actually think very, very early on. I did think about hey, what about, like, John Grisham with legal tech? And then I said. No., it’s, I don’t think it’s an area conducive.

Greg Lambert 1:55
You’d rather go where there’s an audience?

Richard Tromans 1:57
Yeah.

Marlene Gebauer 1:59
I bet there’s an audience?

Richard Tromans 2:02
Yeah, I don’t know. Like, a legal engineer uncovers an incredible plot to subvert an NDA or something. I don’t know. Who knows? But um, yeah.

Greg Lambert 2:14
Got me on the edge of the seat.

Marlene Gebauer 2:18
Well, if you need editor if you if you need proof readers, just you know, let us know.

Richard Tromans 2:22
I might take you up.

Marlene Gebauer 2:23
Yeah. So, Richard, since you went on sabbatical, like since November of 2022. You know, you may have noticed there was a little bit of buzz around that time regards to, you know, this thing called generative AI. How have you been looking at the overall real effect that that breakthrough in AI has made on the legal industry?

Richard Tromans 2:51
Yeah, well, I mean, first of all, I was covering it before I went. So for example, I think I was the first person to do a ultimate product walkthrough, did it with ALTV of Spellbook, which is, you know, very well known. But I did that in I think, November 2022. I did LLM study you know about on Patent Pal. There was a couple of PCs about LLMs in general. So it was kind of kicking off just before I left. And then as I went through the year, I was following it. But I think, you know, the big insight that I had from being outside LegalTech was just how different the appreciation, or lack of appreciation are LLMs. And generative AI in general, is outside of a legal bubble. Inside the legal world, people are generally enthusiastic and there is a bit of reticence and a few people doing dumb things like doing case law research on ChatGPT. But let’s think about this as outliers. Generally, amongst legal tech people with a lot of positivity, it’s, it’s seen as a very powerful tool, it’s very positive. Not a lot of negative, people don’t really think it’s going to create the loss of jobs and so forth. Outside of that, we need to you gotta like California, again. The people they were striking most of last year, anywhere in the world, creative world and studio, world actors, designers, artists, voiceover people. I mean, it’s gonna have a really, really significant impact. And then you’ve got all of this, it was a whole ton of stuff. But anyway, we’re here to talk about legal tech and legal innovation. But I think the long and short of it is out in the big world. Generally, they are it’s gonna cause a lot of good and a lot of bad. I think we’ve got to be honest about that. In the legal world. Strangely, it seems to be mostly I say 99% benign, once you take hype away, and sort of the pointless nihilistic criticism on the other side, which is just like a polar opposite of the the hype, really, than the general consensus is that this is all had been very positive. So I’m feeling pretty good about it. I’m feeling glad that I came back now, which perhaps is going to be your next question. Because the last 12 months has just been a lot of hype and a lot of cynicism, which kind of cancels each other out and actually very little absence and a lot of law firm in house, internal legal tech groups, innovation groups, they’re only really now getting to grips with it and actually getting real outputs.

Greg Lambert 5:26
So I was gonna ask you on it. I really don’t think, Yeah, Marlene and I gave a presentation recently at the Houston sociation law libraries. And we kind of looked at the Gartner Hype Cycle and kind of looked at it and said, we’re kind of dead, right in the middle of the trough of disillusionment of the Gen, generative AI ai at the moment. And so, you know, as you’ve been kind of standing back and watching things unfold, are you are you actually seeing any actual transformation yet? Are you still seeing everyone saying, wow, there’s a lot of potential here, but not a lot of action yet.

Richard Tromans 6:16
It’s starting, it’s starting. I mean, you know, I’m starting, it really started. I mean, it’s this, they’re beginning the journey of integrating what NLM can do with other technology, and building it into their work processes. And for me, I don’t know, if you’ve read a couple of the articles that I wrote recently, since I got back, you know, so we generative AI ai has split the legal information atom. Now what, and the point of that article, and I’ll send you, I’ll send you a link. It’s basically to say, there’s a lot of people shaving an hour or two of various work processes, you know, like Doc review, or, you know, helping to draft clauses. So for for contract generation. But what we’re really lacking, and this is really the beginning of real change, is when people stop just thinking, thinking of it as like a little helper, you know, Santos, little helper GPT-4 Little Helper. And to start, think of it as something that they’re going to integrate all the way through their business or way through the product legal way through the production lines. So it’s connecting to the DMS is connected to all of your knowledge management capabilities is connected to all of your templates, it’s going to sort of your precedence there is you don’t have to worry about prompting everything yourself, because all the system prompts and master prompts been built in and built in and built in on so many layers and so many levels, that partner coming to a piece of work and just get straight into it. We’re not there yet. And also, because part of that is pricing is that you can’t you can’t divorce the tech from the the economics. Bizarrely, actually, while I was away, I was asked to write part of a paper for Wolters Kluwer on that I made this point that, you know, legal technology has not transformed the legal world at all, except really in ediscovery. Because the vast majority of legal activity has not adapted itself to the technology. You cannot have a transformation or change via technology. If the economic model is still over anointing century, doesn’t they just don’t go together. And interestingly, ediscovery moved really rapidly out of a law firms out of the bill of flour, into a very, very, very smart combination of people and technology. And it did that way before a lot of the AI stuff came along. They were out in France for real pioneers in that respect. And what we need is everything else to follow suit.

Greg Lambert 8:55
Yeah, yeah. And speaking of ediscovery, you know, I’ve kind of been I mean, let me get your opinion on this. I’ve been a little bit shocked at how little the eDiscovery that’s true. Companies have done to kind of take the technology and in the processes that they’ve already set up over the years. And not Why are you and I know that DISCO is doing part of that with their Cecilia servient is doing a really good job. I think, from the two of them. I think Serbians probably doing more of a job trying to become more of an AI tool than an ediscovery tool or at least a leader. Are you seeing anything? Are you kind of surprised by the lack of ediscovery not leading this?

Richard Tromans 9:48
Oh, well, I mean, there are some interesting things like Relativity is doing some interesting stuff, for example, that I mean, perhaps it’s partly because they were so out in front for so long, and it was such a tear. played area of the legal world, that they’re so deeply embedded in the in the way that they’ve been working very hard to then just completely tear it down. For example, visits going completely off, you’ve discovered through, I was talking to a company, the works in real estate review. They spent two years using traditional traditional, the drawing was processing machine learning system, you know, the equivalent of Kiera. But they were making their own version, just all real estate documents. And they said they were just about to release this technology to the wider world. And then ChatGPT arrived and the missile the wider implications and got into they started digging into technology. And they basically said, Well, we’ve got to do it all over again. Because the kinds of things that are going to be useful for the clients like being able to ask generalistic questions in natural language, or even asked questions that are kind of very obtuse. Uh, you know, is there something I’m missing here that you can’t you can’t with a traditional healer, literal language NLP system, you can’t type in bizarre questions, strange questions, you have to have very, very clear questions. I mean, you have to train her up a little bit yourself and get the accuracy that you want. And Olympus can do can do all the edge cases, the edge question does really, really nicely. And I think probably the answer is going to be a bit of a combination of the two. I saw a bit of research a while ago on it, I think there’s a law firm being made was it suddenly asked him I can’t remember, was looking at uses for ediscovery. And they were just showing that a sort of combination of more traditional machine learning, with an LLM approach combined, really answered a lot of questions.

Marlene Gebauer 11:41
I’m curious, because we’re, you know, you’re talking about how we’re going to integrate this into processes. Is this kind of a build situation? Or is this more of a buy situation? You know, it’ll be I know that there are Microsoft is looking at things, but you know, what, this concerns about it touching things?

Richard Tromans 12:02
Well, I mean, Microsoft’s interesting, I was talking to one head of innovation, he was basically saying that CO pilots, the Microsoft co pilots, even you know, running through as you are, or whatever it is, it just wasn’t producing the kind of results that a lawyer would want. So I mean, what most people are doing that I’ve seen, they’re using a combination. So somebody might be using Harvey spellbook. They’re running their own version of GPT-4. Whether it’s whatever the whatever the system they’re using, and they’re using all of these things in combination. And then also, I mean, there’s so many barriers, I mean, people really haven’t started connecting it properly to the DMS yet. And that’s because there’s worries over data security and things like that. But, you know, we will get there, we will get there. And then you start to bring in all the other tools. I mean, what we’ve got at the moment is jigsaw, we’ve got a jigsaw of tools. And we’re nowhere near yet bringing it all together into a coherent structure. It’s interesting to see that I think Thomson Reuters, for example, and LexisNexis, as well, are really trying to do this. They’re really trying to thread all the pieces together. Ironically, though, even though this is a welcome move, you speak to a lot of legal tech people inside law firms, they’ll say we don’t want just one system, we want to pick and choose you want to customize, you want to build, we want to slot in the bits we want. So we’ll see where that goes. But there has to be ultimately we have to redesign the processes just dropping a tool here and a tool there to kill an hour to kill an hour there will not going to break the Standard Model. Standard Model is going to be with us forever. It is rather like a think of a coal powered power station, right? In the Midwest, churning out smoke and everything right? And they say, but we’re really quite green. We’ve got this like little like, windmill thing, you know, wind turbine on the top. But it doesn’t change the the overall structure. The structure is still massively inefficient. It’s still burning billable hours, you might say, right. It’s highly calorific. legal work, but it’s generating lots of negative side effects. So we’re miles away from getting there. But I think people are starting to think about it, it seems to never, I mean, otherwise, as I mentioned in that previous article, it’s just going to become a legal tech fossil, it’s going to become part of the legal tech fossil record. Right, we shouldn’t be a tragedy. And it’s gonna be really weird, because then what would happen is that LegalTech would become like this kind of sad little island, then the rest of society would move on around it getting better and better at using generative AI technology, that for us, we just be like, Oh, well, we saved an hour on a due diligence exercise that was 2000 hours long, which isn’t gonna get us anywhere. So there’s, I think it’s more or less forcing the law firms to rethink their processes.

Marlene Gebauer 14:57
And I’m also curious, you know, there’s a A lot of talk about like, prompting and how to tell the models what to do. And there’s debate about that, like people are saying, you know, you know, profit engineers are going to be prevalent. There’s other people saying that, that’s going to go away. But I mean, I feel it’s some, you know, it’s some level, you’re going to have to have somewhere, you’re going to have to have expertise and how to make this work, whether you’re in the background, setting things up, so that that, you know, front end users aren’t going to have to think about it. Or if you’re a front end user, and you need to, you need to customize. And I’m thinking, you know, where do you where do you see that, in terms of sort of moving in, in terms of like getting this more process oriented?

Richard Tromans 15:43
Yeah, it’s got, it’s got to be a front end back end scenario, there are always going to be some people who are hobbyists, in the same way that you can give a standardized NDA, to most lawyers, they’ll just accept it and say, I don’t care, let’s just get on with the deal, because that’s where the interesting work is, other people would take the entire NDA apart and rewrite it word for word, right? They’re a small minority, I think it’s gonna be the same stuff with promptly I think the smarter firms, whether they’re just bringing in external tools, which they can customize a bit, or they’re completely building from the ground up, using a GPT-4 base, something similar, they will do have a system prompting, in the master prompting, and some of them will actually even get as far as actually refining as well on their own data through Question and Answer combinations to really sort of fine tune. But all of that should be on the back end. Right, you want as little confusion as possible when you hand it to the clients, or internal clients, in which case this partner or an associate? Good, because it’s going to get really weird, because you’re gonna have a situation where people are being expected to perform an action, which is part of a longer process with a degree of predictability and risk reduction. And then you’ll have different people getting completely randomly different results, because they’re asking prompts in very different ways. So you want to try and narrow down the variability, you want to get maximum results, that you want to try and reduce that sort of crazy breadth of risk that you get with with prompting at the moment. I mean, it’s crazy isn’t you just change like a few words in a prompt, and you’ll get a radically different response. So that common

Marlene Gebauer 17:27
And you chage the words at all, and you still get a different response.

Richard Tromans 17:32
And legal column, aren’t do do with that it’s a waste of time as well. It’s a waste of time. And when you’ve got a partner, whatever is billing out $2,000 An hour or something, and he’s wasted. She’s wasted 30 minutes, dropping in different prompts. So that we should just be like, I want this information. The tech team in the back has done on the prompting for you.

Marlene Gebauer 17:56
Got it. So I am very excited to say that in June, you have a legal innovators California conference going on in San Francisco. So it’s a two day event. It focuses on law firms for day one, and then in house and legal ops for day two. So tell us what some of the themes are. And some of the speakers, you know, and who you’re excited to have at the conference in California.

Richard Tromans 18:23
Yeah, no, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, so yeah, a little innovators California. It’s a US events in San Francisco on June 4 And 5th in the center. Tickets are on sale now. Speakers, we’ve got a fantastic bunch. We’ve only inhersight. We’ve got Google, META. We’ve got Salesforce, we from academia, we got people like Megan Maher from Stanford who’s a sort of renowned generative AI ai and AI expert. On the law firm side, we’ve got people like David Wang from Wilson Sonsini, we’ve got Orrick, we’ve got Gunderson, we’ve got investors coming over, because we’re gonna have a little bit of time talking about investments. And also we’re going to encourage them in smaller companies to sort of not exactly pitch to the investors, but do a presentation where they can probably get a bit of input and feedback from investors as well. So if you are a startup, and you’re listening to this, drop us a light, let’s see if we can get you in it I think there’s gonna be in terms of the subjects, obviously, generative AI is going to be central, isn’t it? It’s got to be, but also standardization. If what I would like to see actually ever takes place, it’s not just going to be about productive forces. So a productive force is like an LLM, right. You know, it has a huge productive impact on a process that you’re trying to carry out. But you also need the infrastructure, and you also need to shape the channels of activity. So we’re going to need standardization, not just on NDA, but on sort of slightly more complex contracts as well and we’re gonna need to think much, much more about the the channel between law firms, clients, parties and counterparties. So there’s a whole I mean, of where I say it is is that there’s gonna be like an entire new infrastructure architecture that needs to be built. And it’s not that people weren’t saying this before. There are plenty of people who’ve been saying this for years. I think what’s happening now is that a generative AI is effectively pushed us up to this point where they can’t hold it back any longer. They’ve got to systematize things, they’ve got to think about things in a more logical way. This kind of ad hoc, well, it doesn’t matter. As long as I’m busy. As long as I’m billing, everything is good. And from the buy side, they’re like, Well, I don’t really know what they do. And I don’t really understand these, these items on the bill, but it looks big. And there are famous brands, I’m sure it’s fine. There helps pay it off. Shave off 20% completely randomly. Hey, it’s all cool. I mean, that seems like a bonkers way to run a market. Yeah, let me maybe maybe I don’t, maybe magic.

Greg Lambert 20:53
It’s hard to tell millionaires they are doing it wrong.

Richard Tromans 20:56
Well, exactly. But ultimately, this is the thing is, is what our legal services for legal services are not for lawyers, legal services that serve society and to serve the business. Amazingly, apparently, I read that somewhere, may not be right, I do think it could possibly be true, as a fact is true. And what we all doing, we’ve got to think, you know, from the top down, you know, how are we how are we running this sector for the benefit of everybody? Of course, you get incentivized, but no one’s gonna tell me that a corporate lawyer is not incentivized already. And do you think in the world of fixed fees and LLMs, standardization, they’re not going to be massively incentivized anyway, in fact, I don’t have the time to get into it here. But from a calculations, but I’ve been doing the last few weeks, I’ve been creating financial models for using technology, well, AI, primarily, automation and fixed fees, and mixes, associates and partners. And from what I can figure out so far, is that law firms are actually going to be more profitable using generative AI.

Greg Lambert 22:06
And make sense.

Marlene Gebauer 22:07
We’ll have you back to talk about that. Yeah. Sure. People want to hear about that.

Richard Tromans 22:13
A lot of lawyers side on the on the sell side on the sell side of the market. I don’t see lawyers being lost, because there is no point on the buy side. I think we could see some losses, particularly in contract management’s. But on the sell side, it’s not in the law firms interest to undermine their own earning power.

Greg Lambert 22:34
Yeah, yeah. Well, on the the conference coming up in June, who who’s the audience that you’re attracting for this one? And is the has the audience kind of shifted at all over over the past couple of years, who, who would be incentivized to come?

Richard Tromans 22:54
I think it’s always been similar people, it’s people bulk with, I guess, has two core groups, you’ve got a group who are really in the thick, that who are very much part of the innovation scene or the legal obscene, and effectively, they’re coming along to meet their peers, many of them will be living in California on the West Coast or in Washington States, or people will have flown over from the East Coast, also some people from the UK. And then I think there’s a whole bunch of people who are just curious, because I mean, California has a huge market share, I can take gigantic economy, a lot of lawyers, but I think it’s the second biggest legal market after New York, I think I was a lot of people who are just going to be there to learn. And I think I’m hoping that we will be interested in generative AI, that there’ll be a lot of local lawyers perhaps who are not experts in technology who want to come along to listen to the experts, from large companies from leading law firms, etc. So I think it will be a mix.

Marlene Gebauer 23:53
And that’s always cool. Because then it’s like, it’s it’s great when you get to talk to people sort of, with coming from from different perspectives. And you know, it’s always good to learn things that way.

Greg Lambert 24:03
Those have always been my most enjoyable meetings is greens, where, you know, there’s a mix of law firm, there’s a mix of in house, there’s a mix of vendors, there’s no academic. That’s where the real good conversations come in for me.

Marlene Gebauer 24:20
Exactly. But, Richard, you also have a legal innovators London conference coming up in November. So you’ve announced in in 2025, you’re going to actually add a third day to the London conference, which will be a litigation day. So that focuses on disputes on arbitration, eDiscovery, case law research, and I guess other litigation tools and services. So what’s the reasoning behind this this new edition coming in?

Richard Tromans 24:46
Yeah, well, I mean, I think it’s because I think it’s probably fair to say that the litigation world, the transactional world, at least in the UK, to some degree, maybe it’s because in the UK we have a split profession between barristers and clusters, it’s slightly different. The the transactional world tends to dominate legal tech and discussions around legal innovation. And yes, certainly on a global level, definitely in the US, litigation is 50% of the market, definitely in America, in the UK, amongst the big law firms, it’s still about maybe 30%, of the big law firms revenues. So I think it really needs something dedicated to it. And there’s just so much to talk about the eDiscovery disclosure, as it’s called, in the UK, case, law research, arbitration, you know, online dispute resolution, it just goes on. But it’s such a massive subject, I think, by the time we get to 2025, generative AI will really have impacted that area a lot. And again, if you look, if you look at where a lot of people are talking about generative AI, it’s transactional. It’s like helped me to draft his contracts. And we review this contract, it helped me to summarize this legislation. So I can talk to my clients about how we should draft this contract. It’s very, very transactional, transactional, ly orientated. So I thought, you know, let’s, let’s bring in the litigation side.

Greg Lambert 26:11
Yeah, yeah. And even even, I mean, you kind of pointed this out, even on the litigation side, it’s transactional. It’s about, like we had Damien on a little bit ago. And, and everything that he’s doing is pulling out metadata, asking questions, organizing the information. So it’s interesting, even within the litigation processes of it, the AI tools seem to be very transactional.

Richard Tromans 26:37
Yeah, I think I mean, just one last point on that is, is, how are we going to price it all that’s going to be fascinating on transactional work was a degree of well, it’s simpler. Because, you know, the Verizon endpoint that, you know, you’re trying to get to, we want to complete this merger. Yeah, we’ll do the due diligence, we’ll, you know, argue over various aspects of the deal and so forth. And, and there is an important, you know, there’s a merger, it’s all done. You can plan that you can benchmark it, there are probably deals that are actually very, very similar, you know, so you can start to bring in fixed fees, you can start to see how tech and pricing and virtual activity and lawyers all kind of fit together. With litigation. It’s totally totally different, isn’t it? Because you’ve got in the US, you got punitive damages? How do you call? How do you predict those? I mean, that’s an I think that’s gonna be one aspect, I think, is there’s been a lot of work up to now on using AI for predictive purposes. Where are we going to get in relation to using an LM? So crunching huge amounts of data to make predictions about it’s going to be interesting? Yeah, yeah. I mean, and also, I mean, I think we’ve got some really interesting ethical issues. I mean, I think we’ve contracts. It doesn’t I don’t think the ethical issues get that bad. I mean, is it an ethical issue to use an LLM to redraft a change of control clause? Or really as long as there’s a lawyer there? who’s trained and regulated looking at it and going, Okay, that’s good. The shoot a lawyer who’s in court or go to being caught, use noodle em to draft their speech? Should they should a judge the asking and allow them What do you think? Do you think he’s guilty? You read the evidence the same as me, what do you think?

Greg Lambert 28:36
The transcripts video in YouTube

Marlene Gebauer 28:42
They seems nice.

Greg Lambert 28:44
Even though the future is

Richard Tromans 28:49
also multimodal combinations? I mean, you know, you’ve got a video camera and the court is it’s downloading all the energy is some person probably already has developed a way of doing some kind of emotional response analysis for defendants. Who knows what, who knows where this is gonna go? There’s all kinds of interesting things.

Greg Lambert 29:14
Well, speaking of where things are gonna go, it’s time for our crystal ball questions. So we’ll have yet the pull out the crystal ball and pure into the future for us, Richard and so what, what kind of change or challenge do you see for the legal industry say over the next two to five years?

Richard Tromans 29:32
Okay, well,

Greg Lambert 29:34
that’s a long time now.

Richard Tromans 29:36
Yeah, well, I’m I would sum it up. And it’s always the same challenge. It’s always the things that were that I think we are about to do that have been instigated by the arrival of generative AI. We could have done five years ago. It would have been clunkier. The old machine learning systems were clunkier. Some of the automation systems and redrafting systems were clunkier, but we could have done it we just didn’t wasn’t the impetus to do it? I think the big challenge as ever is, will the clients finally finally say enough is enough? And do a kind of like ontological leap out of their own reality and go? Yeah, I was trained this way, I was trained to think this way I was taught that time is the ultimate measure of value. Which is ironic in a in an industry that’s primarily intellectual. It’s kind of bizarre. You know, we’re not like building bridges, we’re actually expressing ourselves in intellectual terms. But anyway, if they can get out of that, if they can then think about repricing if they can think about their own methods, and then say, well, if we’re starting to use technology more and more and more on our own contract management, when things get a bit more complex, and they go out, can we do the same? Can we demand the same our external lawyers, and then you just start to get the slow revolution? I mean, I don’t think it’s necessarily an evolution is actually think it is a revolution revolution is where something replaces something else, right. And evolution is where something morphs into something else, I think this will be a revolution, but it’s gonna be a slow one. It’s gonna be a gentle revolution. Right? And I think this is this is this is, you know, the $700 billion, you know, $800 billion, whatever it is, these days legal market question, will the clients and the law firm somehow get together and solve these big problems? Or are we going to be stuck in this kind of ad hoc manual labor, you know, high, high calorific, legal activity kind of world forever. And like I say, if that does happen, if we fail, at this challenge, the rest of the technological world will go around us will be like, will be like a vehicle stuck on the freeway, and all the other vehicles are going around it. Right? That’d be very sad. So I don’t think that will happen. I don’t think the owners of the large companies, the CFO is the CEO is the investors, activist hedge funds, and so forth, will let that happen. They’ll they’ll say, they’ll go down to the legal department and say, Look, even if you don’t want to change, you’ve got to change. Or, actually, I know you do want to change, you just need a bit of moral support and a bit of air cover, to say, this is cool, you can push back will stand behind you. It’s not always by IBM, that you’ll never go wrong. You know, let’s, let’s challenge some assumptions. But like I say, we might not we might not. But there is a real possibility that we come up to the fence. And we back off, we don’t jump. At that point. Like I said, risk will will come around us.

Greg Lambert 32:48
Yep. Never underestimate our ability to screw up a really good situation.

Marlene Gebauer 32:55
Well, definitely great food for thought. So thank you, Richard Tromans for talking with us today. Where can people find you and the Artificial Lawyer online? Yeah, thanks.

Richard Tromans 33:06
Um, it’s at as always artificiallawyer.com. And the conference, which is in San Francisco, June 4. And fifth is is a very long but very, very simple .com. It is legalinnovatorsCalifornia.com, it’s about that long. But if you just type in legal innovators into Google, and then you’ll probably see the one for California. And as mentioned, the tickets are now available.

Greg Lambert 33:39
And I’ll make sure that we get the links on the on the show notes as well.

Marlene Gebauer 33:43
And thanks to everyone, our audience for listening to The Geek in Review podcast. We’d love to hear from you. So please find us on social media sites like LinkedIn. The music you hear every week is from Jerry David DeCicca. And so we thank Jerry very much.

Greg Lambert 33:58
Thanks, Jerry. Thanks, Marlene.

Marlene Gebauer 34:00
Thank you

Tromans observes that while the legal industry is generally enthusiastic about the potential of generative AI, there is a stark contrast in the perception of its impact outside the legal bubble. He believes that the technology will have a significant effect on the legal sector, but it will be mostly benign, with the potential to add value to the profession once the hype and cynicism subside.

The key to real transformation, according to Tromans, lies in integrating AI throughout the entire business process, rather than using it as a mere helper tool. This integration should encompass document management systems, knowledge management capabilities, templates, and precedents. However, he emphasizes that the current economic model of the legal industry must adapt to the technology for true transformation to occur.

Tromans also discusses the upcoming Legal Innovators California conference in San Francisco, which will focus on generative AI, standardization, and the infrastructure needed to support the evolving legal landscape. The event will feature speakers from law firms, in-house legal departments, academia, and major tech companies.

Looking ahead, Tromans believes that the biggest challenge for the legal industry over the next two to five years will be the willingness of clients and law firms to embrace change and rethink their processes. He argues that the industry could have adopted AI-driven solutions years ago, but the impetus to do so was lacking. The success of this “gentle revolution” will depend on the ability of clients and law firms to challenge assumptions and adapt to the changing technological landscape.

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠

Contact Us: 

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads: @glambertpod or @gebauerm66
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠

Transcript

Marlene Gebauer 0:07
Welcome to The Geek in Review. The podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal profession. I’m Marlene Gebauer,

Greg Lambert 0:14
And I’m Greg Lambert. Well, this week we have a talk with Richard Tromans. Who is Richard, you’re looking great for coming off a sabatical. And you’ve just jumped right back into your work there at Artificial Lawyer. So Richard, thanks for taking time away from all this writing I’m sure that you’re doing to talk with us here at The Geek in Review.

Richard Tromans 0:37
Yeah, then thank you. Greg. Thank you, Marlene. Yeah, it’s, it’s already incredibly busy. I think I published four stories today. So Artificial Lawyers is back.

Greg Lambert 0:48
Yeah. I think I’ve published four stories this year.

So Richard, the big question on everyone’s mind is, what the heck does someone do for a year and a half on a sabbatical?

Marlene Gebauer 1:03
Yeah, we want to know,

Richard Tromans 1:05
Easy is easy, easy. Honestly, it feels like I’ve been away from. If you’ve told me I’d been away for two months. I would say that kind of realistic. That’s how it feels. When really fast. So I did a bit of traveling to California, obviously, as you as you’ll hear a bit more about California later in the show. I’ve been writing a book of fiction, not not about legal, and may write a book that looks like I’ve been asked several times by publishers. So you wrote a book about legal tech. And I may well,

Legal tech fiction?

but instead know what I did. I actually think very, very early on. I did think about hey, what about, like, John Grisham with legal tech? And then I said. No., it’s, I don’t think it’s an area conducive.

Greg Lambert 1:55
You’d rather go where there’s an audience?

Richard Tromans 1:57
Yeah.

Marlene Gebauer 1:59
I bet there’s an audience?

Richard Tromans 2:02
Yeah, I don’t know. Like, a legal engineer uncovers an incredible plot to subvert an NDA or something. I don’t know. Who knows? But um, yeah.

Greg Lambert 2:14
Got me on the edge of the seat.

Marlene Gebauer 2:18
Well, if you need editor if you if you need proof readers, just you know, let us know.

Richard Tromans 2:22
I might take you up.

Marlene Gebauer 2:23
Yeah. So, Richard, since you went on sabbatical, like since November of 2022. You know, you may have noticed there was a little bit of buzz around that time regards to, you know, this thing called generative AI. How have you been looking at the overall real effect that that breakthrough in AI has made on the legal industry?

Richard Tromans 2:51
Yeah, well, I mean, first of all, I was covering it before I went. So for example, I think I was the first person to do a ultimate product walkthrough, did it with ALTV of Spellbook, which is, you know, very well known. But I did that in I think, November 2022. I did LLM study you know about on Patent Pal. There was a couple of PCs about LLMs in general. So it was kind of kicking off just before I left. And then as I went through the year, I was following it. But I think, you know, the big insight that I had from being outside LegalTech was just how different the appreciation, or lack of appreciation are LLMs. And generative AI in general, is outside of a legal bubble. Inside the legal world, people are generally enthusiastic and there is a bit of reticence and a few people doing dumb things like doing case law research on ChatGPT. But let’s think about this as outliers. Generally, amongst legal tech people with a lot of positivity, it’s, it’s seen as a very powerful tool, it’s very positive. Not a lot of negative, people don’t really think it’s going to create the loss of jobs and so forth. Outside of that, we need to you gotta like California, again. The people they were striking most of last year, anywhere in the world, creative world and studio, world actors, designers, artists, voiceover people. I mean, it’s gonna have a really, really significant impact. And then you’ve got all of this, it was a whole ton of stuff. But anyway, we’re here to talk about legal tech and legal innovation. But I think the long and short of it is out in the big world. Generally, they are it’s gonna cause a lot of good and a lot of bad. I think we’ve got to be honest about that. In the legal world. Strangely, it seems to be mostly I say 99% benign, once you take hype away, and sort of the pointless nihilistic criticism on the other side, which is just like a polar opposite of the the hype, really, than the general consensus is that this is all had been very positive. So I’m feeling pretty good about it. I’m feeling glad that I came back now, which perhaps is going to be your next question. Because the last 12 months has just been a lot of hype and a lot of cynicism, which kind of cancels each other out and actually very little absence and a lot of law firm in house, internal legal tech groups, innovation groups, they’re only really now getting to grips with it and actually getting real outputs.

Greg Lambert 5:26
So I was gonna ask you on it. I really don’t think, Yeah, Marlene and I gave a presentation recently at the Houston sociation law libraries. And we kind of looked at the Gartner Hype Cycle and kind of looked at it and said, we’re kind of dead, right in the middle of the trough of disillusionment of the Gen, generative AI ai at the moment. And so, you know, as you’ve been kind of standing back and watching things unfold, are you are you actually seeing any actual transformation yet? Are you still seeing everyone saying, wow, there’s a lot of potential here, but not a lot of action yet.

Richard Tromans 6:16
It’s starting, it’s starting. I mean, you know, I’m starting, it really started. I mean, it’s this, they’re beginning the journey of integrating what NLM can do with other technology, and building it into their work processes. And for me, I don’t know, if you’ve read a couple of the articles that I wrote recently, since I got back, you know, so we generative AI ai has split the legal information atom. Now what, and the point of that article, and I’ll send you, I’ll send you a link. It’s basically to say, there’s a lot of people shaving an hour or two of various work processes, you know, like Doc review, or, you know, helping to draft clauses. So for for contract generation. But what we’re really lacking, and this is really the beginning of real change, is when people stop just thinking, thinking of it as like a little helper, you know, Santos, little helper GPT-4 Little Helper. And to start, think of it as something that they’re going to integrate all the way through their business or way through the product legal way through the production lines. So it’s connecting to the DMS is connected to all of your knowledge management capabilities is connected to all of your templates, it’s going to sort of your precedence there is you don’t have to worry about prompting everything yourself, because all the system prompts and master prompts been built in and built in and built in on so many layers and so many levels, that partner coming to a piece of work and just get straight into it. We’re not there yet. And also, because part of that is pricing is that you can’t you can’t divorce the tech from the the economics. Bizarrely, actually, while I was away, I was asked to write part of a paper for Wolters Kluwer on that I made this point that, you know, legal technology has not transformed the legal world at all, except really in ediscovery. Because the vast majority of legal activity has not adapted itself to the technology. You cannot have a transformation or change via technology. If the economic model is still over anointing century, doesn’t they just don’t go together. And interestingly, ediscovery moved really rapidly out of a law firms out of the bill of flour, into a very, very, very smart combination of people and technology. And it did that way before a lot of the AI stuff came along. They were out in France for real pioneers in that respect. And what we need is everything else to follow suit.

Greg Lambert 8:55
Yeah, yeah. And speaking of ediscovery, you know, I’ve kind of been I mean, let me get your opinion on this. I’ve been a little bit shocked at how little the eDiscovery that’s true. Companies have done to kind of take the technology and in the processes that they’ve already set up over the years. And not Why are you and I know that DISCO is doing part of that with their Cecilia servient is doing a really good job. I think, from the two of them. I think Serbians probably doing more of a job trying to become more of an AI tool than an ediscovery tool or at least a leader. Are you seeing anything? Are you kind of surprised by the lack of ediscovery not leading this?

Richard Tromans 9:48
Oh, well, I mean, there are some interesting things like Relativity is doing some interesting stuff, for example, that I mean, perhaps it’s partly because they were so out in front for so long, and it was such a tear. played area of the legal world, that they’re so deeply embedded in the in the way that they’ve been working very hard to then just completely tear it down. For example, visits going completely off, you’ve discovered through, I was talking to a company, the works in real estate review. They spent two years using traditional traditional, the drawing was processing machine learning system, you know, the equivalent of Kiera. But they were making their own version, just all real estate documents. And they said they were just about to release this technology to the wider world. And then ChatGPT arrived and the missile the wider implications and got into they started digging into technology. And they basically said, Well, we’ve got to do it all over again. Because the kinds of things that are going to be useful for the clients like being able to ask generalistic questions in natural language, or even asked questions that are kind of very obtuse. Uh, you know, is there something I’m missing here that you can’t you can’t with a traditional healer, literal language NLP system, you can’t type in bizarre questions, strange questions, you have to have very, very clear questions. I mean, you have to train her up a little bit yourself and get the accuracy that you want. And Olympus can do can do all the edge cases, the edge question does really, really nicely. And I think probably the answer is going to be a bit of a combination of the two. I saw a bit of research a while ago on it, I think there’s a law firm being made was it suddenly asked him I can’t remember, was looking at uses for ediscovery. And they were just showing that a sort of combination of more traditional machine learning, with an LLM approach combined, really answered a lot of questions.

Marlene Gebauer 11:41
I’m curious, because we’re, you know, you’re talking about how we’re going to integrate this into processes. Is this kind of a build situation? Or is this more of a buy situation? You know, it’ll be I know that there are Microsoft is looking at things, but you know, what, this concerns about it touching things?

Richard Tromans 12:02
Well, I mean, Microsoft’s interesting, I was talking to one head of innovation, he was basically saying that CO pilots, the Microsoft co pilots, even you know, running through as you are, or whatever it is, it just wasn’t producing the kind of results that a lawyer would want. So I mean, what most people are doing that I’ve seen, they’re using a combination. So somebody might be using Harvey spellbook. They’re running their own version of GPT-4. Whether it’s whatever the whatever the system they’re using, and they’re using all of these things in combination. And then also, I mean, there’s so many barriers, I mean, people really haven’t started connecting it properly to the DMS yet. And that’s because there’s worries over data security and things like that. But, you know, we will get there, we will get there. And then you start to bring in all the other tools. I mean, what we’ve got at the moment is jigsaw, we’ve got a jigsaw of tools. And we’re nowhere near yet bringing it all together into a coherent structure. It’s interesting to see that I think Thomson Reuters, for example, and LexisNexis, as well, are really trying to do this. They’re really trying to thread all the pieces together. Ironically, though, even though this is a welcome move, you speak to a lot of legal tech people inside law firms, they’ll say we don’t want just one system, we want to pick and choose you want to customize, you want to build, we want to slot in the bits we want. So we’ll see where that goes. But there has to be ultimately we have to redesign the processes just dropping a tool here and a tool there to kill an hour to kill an hour there will not going to break the Standard Model. Standard Model is going to be with us forever. It is rather like a think of a coal powered power station, right? In the Midwest, churning out smoke and everything right? And they say, but we’re really quite green. We’ve got this like little like, windmill thing, you know, wind turbine on the top. But it doesn’t change the the overall structure. The structure is still massively inefficient. It’s still burning billable hours, you might say, right. It’s highly calorific. legal work, but it’s generating lots of negative side effects. So we’re miles away from getting there. But I think people are starting to think about it, it seems to never, I mean, otherwise, as I mentioned in that previous article, it’s just going to become a legal tech fossil, it’s going to become part of the legal tech fossil record. Right, we shouldn’t be a tragedy. And it’s gonna be really weird, because then what would happen is that LegalTech would become like this kind of sad little island, then the rest of society would move on around it getting better and better at using generative AI technology, that for us, we just be like, Oh, well, we saved an hour on a due diligence exercise that was 2000 hours long, which isn’t gonna get us anywhere. So there’s, I think it’s more or less forcing the law firms to rethink their processes.

Marlene Gebauer 14:57
And I’m also curious, you know, there’s a A lot of talk about like, prompting and how to tell the models what to do. And there’s debate about that, like people are saying, you know, you know, profit engineers are going to be prevalent. There’s other people saying that, that’s going to go away. But I mean, I feel it’s some, you know, it’s some level, you’re going to have to have somewhere, you’re going to have to have expertise and how to make this work, whether you’re in the background, setting things up, so that that, you know, front end users aren’t going to have to think about it. Or if you’re a front end user, and you need to, you need to customize. And I’m thinking, you know, where do you where do you see that, in terms of sort of moving in, in terms of like getting this more process oriented?

Richard Tromans 15:43
Yeah, it’s got, it’s got to be a front end back end scenario, there are always going to be some people who are hobbyists, in the same way that you can give a standardized NDA, to most lawyers, they’ll just accept it and say, I don’t care, let’s just get on with the deal, because that’s where the interesting work is, other people would take the entire NDA apart and rewrite it word for word, right? They’re a small minority, I think it’s gonna be the same stuff with promptly I think the smarter firms, whether they’re just bringing in external tools, which they can customize a bit, or they’re completely building from the ground up, using a GPT-4 base, something similar, they will do have a system prompting, in the master prompting, and some of them will actually even get as far as actually refining as well on their own data through Question and Answer combinations to really sort of fine tune. But all of that should be on the back end. Right, you want as little confusion as possible when you hand it to the clients, or internal clients, in which case this partner or an associate? Good, because it’s going to get really weird, because you’re gonna have a situation where people are being expected to perform an action, which is part of a longer process with a degree of predictability and risk reduction. And then you’ll have different people getting completely randomly different results, because they’re asking prompts in very different ways. So you want to try and narrow down the variability, you want to get maximum results, that you want to try and reduce that sort of crazy breadth of risk that you get with with prompting at the moment. I mean, it’s crazy isn’t you just change like a few words in a prompt, and you’ll get a radically different response. So that common

Marlene Gebauer 17:27
And you chage the words at all, and you still get a different response.

Richard Tromans 17:32
And legal column, aren’t do do with that it’s a waste of time as well. It’s a waste of time. And when you’ve got a partner, whatever is billing out $2,000 An hour or something, and he’s wasted. She’s wasted 30 minutes, dropping in different prompts. So that we should just be like, I want this information. The tech team in the back has done on the prompting for you.

Marlene Gebauer 17:56
Got it. So I am very excited to say that in June, you have a legal innovators California conference going on in San Francisco. So it’s a two day event. It focuses on law firms for day one, and then in house and legal ops for day two. So tell us what some of the themes are. And some of the speakers, you know, and who you’re excited to have at the conference in California.

Richard Tromans 18:23
Yeah, no, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, so yeah, a little innovators California. It’s a US events in San Francisco on June 4 And 5th in the center. Tickets are on sale now. Speakers, we’ve got a fantastic bunch. We’ve only inhersight. We’ve got Google, META. We’ve got Salesforce, we from academia, we got people like Megan Maher from Stanford who’s a sort of renowned generative AI ai and AI expert. On the law firm side, we’ve got people like David Wang from Wilson Sonsini, we’ve got Orrick, we’ve got Gunderson, we’ve got investors coming over, because we’re gonna have a little bit of time talking about investments. And also we’re going to encourage them in smaller companies to sort of not exactly pitch to the investors, but do a presentation where they can probably get a bit of input and feedback from investors as well. So if you are a startup, and you’re listening to this, drop us a light, let’s see if we can get you in it I think there’s gonna be in terms of the subjects, obviously, generative AI is going to be central, isn’t it? It’s got to be, but also standardization. If what I would like to see actually ever takes place, it’s not just going to be about productive forces. So a productive force is like an LLM, right. You know, it has a huge productive impact on a process that you’re trying to carry out. But you also need the infrastructure, and you also need to shape the channels of activity. So we’re going to need standardization, not just on NDA, but on sort of slightly more complex contracts as well and we’re gonna need to think much, much more about the the channel between law firms, clients, parties and counterparties. So there’s a whole I mean, of where I say it is is that there’s gonna be like an entire new infrastructure architecture that needs to be built. And it’s not that people weren’t saying this before. There are plenty of people who’ve been saying this for years. I think what’s happening now is that a generative AI is effectively pushed us up to this point where they can’t hold it back any longer. They’ve got to systematize things, they’ve got to think about things in a more logical way. This kind of ad hoc, well, it doesn’t matter. As long as I’m busy. As long as I’m billing, everything is good. And from the buy side, they’re like, Well, I don’t really know what they do. And I don’t really understand these, these items on the bill, but it looks big. And there are famous brands, I’m sure it’s fine. There helps pay it off. Shave off 20% completely randomly. Hey, it’s all cool. I mean, that seems like a bonkers way to run a market. Yeah, let me maybe maybe I don’t, maybe magic.

Greg Lambert 20:53
It’s hard to tell millionaires they are doing it wrong.

Richard Tromans 20:56
Well, exactly. But ultimately, this is the thing is, is what our legal services for legal services are not for lawyers, legal services that serve society and to serve the business. Amazingly, apparently, I read that somewhere, may not be right, I do think it could possibly be true, as a fact is true. And what we all doing, we’ve got to think, you know, from the top down, you know, how are we how are we running this sector for the benefit of everybody? Of course, you get incentivized, but no one’s gonna tell me that a corporate lawyer is not incentivized already. And do you think in the world of fixed fees and LLMs, standardization, they’re not going to be massively incentivized anyway, in fact, I don’t have the time to get into it here. But from a calculations, but I’ve been doing the last few weeks, I’ve been creating financial models for using technology, well, AI, primarily, automation and fixed fees, and mixes, associates and partners. And from what I can figure out so far, is that law firms are actually going to be more profitable using generative AI.

Greg Lambert 22:06
And make sense.

Marlene Gebauer 22:07
We’ll have you back to talk about that. Yeah. Sure. People want to hear about that.

Richard Tromans 22:13
A lot of lawyers side on the on the sell side on the sell side of the market. I don’t see lawyers being lost, because there is no point on the buy side. I think we could see some losses, particularly in contract management’s. But on the sell side, it’s not in the law firms interest to undermine their own earning power.

Greg Lambert 22:34
Yeah, yeah. Well, on the the conference coming up in June, who who’s the audience that you’re attracting for this one? And is the has the audience kind of shifted at all over over the past couple of years, who, who would be incentivized to come?

Richard Tromans 22:54
I think it’s always been similar people, it’s people bulk with, I guess, has two core groups, you’ve got a group who are really in the thick, that who are very much part of the innovation scene or the legal obscene, and effectively, they’re coming along to meet their peers, many of them will be living in California on the West Coast or in Washington States, or people will have flown over from the East Coast, also some people from the UK. And then I think there’s a whole bunch of people who are just curious, because I mean, California has a huge market share, I can take gigantic economy, a lot of lawyers, but I think it’s the second biggest legal market after New York, I think I was a lot of people who are just going to be there to learn. And I think I’m hoping that we will be interested in generative AI, that there’ll be a lot of local lawyers perhaps who are not experts in technology who want to come along to listen to the experts, from large companies from leading law firms, etc. So I think it will be a mix.

Marlene Gebauer 23:53
And that’s always cool. Because then it’s like, it’s it’s great when you get to talk to people sort of, with coming from from different perspectives. And you know, it’s always good to learn things that way.

Greg Lambert 24:03
Those have always been my most enjoyable meetings is greens, where, you know, there’s a mix of law firm, there’s a mix of in house, there’s a mix of vendors, there’s no academic. That’s where the real good conversations come in for me.

Marlene Gebauer 24:20
Exactly. But, Richard, you also have a legal innovators London conference coming up in November. So you’ve announced in in 2025, you’re going to actually add a third day to the London conference, which will be a litigation day. So that focuses on disputes on arbitration, eDiscovery, case law research, and I guess other litigation tools and services. So what’s the reasoning behind this this new edition coming in?

Richard Tromans 24:46
Yeah, well, I mean, I think it’s because I think it’s probably fair to say that the litigation world, the transactional world, at least in the UK, to some degree, maybe it’s because in the UK we have a split profession between barristers and clusters, it’s slightly different. The the transactional world tends to dominate legal tech and discussions around legal innovation. And yes, certainly on a global level, definitely in the US, litigation is 50% of the market, definitely in America, in the UK, amongst the big law firms, it’s still about maybe 30%, of the big law firms revenues. So I think it really needs something dedicated to it. And there’s just so much to talk about the eDiscovery disclosure, as it’s called, in the UK, case, law research, arbitration, you know, online dispute resolution, it just goes on. But it’s such a massive subject, I think, by the time we get to 2025, generative AI will really have impacted that area a lot. And again, if you look, if you look at where a lot of people are talking about generative AI, it’s transactional. It’s like helped me to draft his contracts. And we review this contract, it helped me to summarize this legislation. So I can talk to my clients about how we should draft this contract. It’s very, very transactional, transactional, ly orientated. So I thought, you know, let’s, let’s bring in the litigation side.

Greg Lambert 26:11
Yeah, yeah. And even even, I mean, you kind of pointed this out, even on the litigation side, it’s transactional. It’s about, like we had Damien on a little bit ago. And, and everything that he’s doing is pulling out metadata, asking questions, organizing the information. So it’s interesting, even within the litigation processes of it, the AI tools seem to be very transactional.

Richard Tromans 26:37
Yeah, I think I mean, just one last point on that is, is, how are we going to price it all that’s going to be fascinating on transactional work was a degree of well, it’s simpler. Because, you know, the Verizon endpoint that, you know, you’re trying to get to, we want to complete this merger. Yeah, we’ll do the due diligence, we’ll, you know, argue over various aspects of the deal and so forth. And, and there is an important, you know, there’s a merger, it’s all done. You can plan that you can benchmark it, there are probably deals that are actually very, very similar, you know, so you can start to bring in fixed fees, you can start to see how tech and pricing and virtual activity and lawyers all kind of fit together. With litigation. It’s totally totally different, isn’t it? Because you’ve got in the US, you got punitive damages? How do you call? How do you predict those? I mean, that’s an I think that’s gonna be one aspect, I think, is there’s been a lot of work up to now on using AI for predictive purposes. Where are we going to get in relation to using an LM? So crunching huge amounts of data to make predictions about it’s going to be interesting? Yeah, yeah. I mean, and also, I mean, I think we’ve got some really interesting ethical issues. I mean, I think we’ve contracts. It doesn’t I don’t think the ethical issues get that bad. I mean, is it an ethical issue to use an LLM to redraft a change of control clause? Or really as long as there’s a lawyer there? who’s trained and regulated looking at it and going, Okay, that’s good. The shoot a lawyer who’s in court or go to being caught, use noodle em to draft their speech? Should they should a judge the asking and allow them What do you think? Do you think he’s guilty? You read the evidence the same as me, what do you think?

Greg Lambert 28:36
The transcripts video in YouTube

Marlene Gebauer 28:42
They seems nice.

Greg Lambert 28:44
Even though the future is

Richard Tromans 28:49
also multimodal combinations? I mean, you know, you’ve got a video camera and the court is it’s downloading all the energy is some person probably already has developed a way of doing some kind of emotional response analysis for defendants. Who knows what, who knows where this is gonna go? There’s all kinds of interesting things.

Greg Lambert 29:14
Well, speaking of where things are gonna go, it’s time for our crystal ball questions. So we’ll have yet the pull out the crystal ball and pure into the future for us, Richard and so what, what kind of change or challenge do you see for the legal industry say over the next two to five years?

Richard Tromans 29:32
Okay, well,

Greg Lambert 29:34
that’s a long time now.

Richard Tromans 29:36
Yeah, well, I’m I would sum it up. And it’s always the same challenge. It’s always the things that were that I think we are about to do that have been instigated by the arrival of generative AI. We could have done five years ago. It would have been clunkier. The old machine learning systems were clunkier. Some of the automation systems and redrafting systems were clunkier, but we could have done it we just didn’t wasn’t the impetus to do it? I think the big challenge as ever is, will the clients finally finally say enough is enough? And do a kind of like ontological leap out of their own reality and go? Yeah, I was trained this way, I was trained to think this way I was taught that time is the ultimate measure of value. Which is ironic in a in an industry that’s primarily intellectual. It’s kind of bizarre. You know, we’re not like building bridges, we’re actually expressing ourselves in intellectual terms. But anyway, if they can get out of that, if they can then think about repricing if they can think about their own methods, and then say, well, if we’re starting to use technology more and more and more on our own contract management, when things get a bit more complex, and they go out, can we do the same? Can we demand the same our external lawyers, and then you just start to get the slow revolution? I mean, I don’t think it’s necessarily an evolution is actually think it is a revolution revolution is where something replaces something else, right. And evolution is where something morphs into something else, I think this will be a revolution, but it’s gonna be a slow one. It’s gonna be a gentle revolution. Right? And I think this is this is this is, you know, the $700 billion, you know, $800 billion, whatever it is, these days legal market question, will the clients and the law firm somehow get together and solve these big problems? Or are we going to be stuck in this kind of ad hoc manual labor, you know, high, high calorific, legal activity kind of world forever. And like I say, if that does happen, if we fail, at this challenge, the rest of the technological world will go around us will be like, will be like a vehicle stuck on the freeway, and all the other vehicles are going around it. Right? That’d be very sad. So I don’t think that will happen. I don’t think the owners of the large companies, the CFO is the CEO is the investors, activist hedge funds, and so forth, will let that happen. They’ll they’ll say, they’ll go down to the legal department and say, Look, even if you don’t want to change, you’ve got to change. Or, actually, I know you do want to change, you just need a bit of moral support and a bit of air cover, to say, this is cool, you can push back will stand behind you. It’s not always by IBM, that you’ll never go wrong. You know, let’s, let’s challenge some assumptions. But like I say, we might not we might not. But there is a real possibility that we come up to the fence. And we back off, we don’t jump. At that point. Like I said, risk will will come around us.

Greg Lambert 32:48
Yep. Never underestimate our ability to screw up a really good situation.

Marlene Gebauer 32:55
Well, definitely great food for thought. So thank you, Richard Tromans for talking with us today. Where can people find you and the Artificial Lawyer online? Yeah, thanks.

Richard Tromans 33:06
Um, it’s at as always artificiallawyer.com. And the conference, which is in San Francisco, June 4. And fifth is is a very long but very, very simple .com. It is legalinnovatorsCalifornia.com, it’s about that long. But if you just type in legal innovators into Google, and then you’ll probably see the one for California. And as mentioned, the tickets are now available.

Greg Lambert 33:39
And I’ll make sure that we get the links on the on the show notes as well.

Marlene Gebauer 33:43
And thanks to everyone, our audience for listening to The Geek in Review podcast. We’d love to hear from you. So please find us on social media sites like LinkedIn. The music you hear every week is from Jerry David DeCicca. And so we thank Jerry very much.

Greg Lambert 33:58
Thanks, Jerry. Thanks, Marlene.

Marlene Gebauer 34:00
Thank you

Satkunas explains that the data used in the report comes from the CounselLink Insight benchmarking database, which normalizes and anonymizes data related to matters and billing from CounselLink customers. This year’s report highlights significant increases in hourly rates, with firms relying more heavily on this lever to increase revenue and offset rising costs due to inflation. However, the degree to which rates have increased in recent years is noteworthy, with certain practice areas, such as M&A and IP litigation, commanding even higher rate increases.

Despite the substantial rate hikes, the report shows that blended rates at the matter level are not increasing as much, suggesting that other factors, such as staffing and leveraging, are helping to mitigate individual rate increases. Satkunas also notes that while there is a perception that high rates may drive clients to mid-sized firms, the data does not support this trend, with large law firms maintaining and even growing their client base.

The discussion also touches on the adoption of alternative fee arrangements (AFAs), which has remained relatively stagnant over the years, with only around 10% of matters having some form of AFA. However, Satkunas remains optimistic that the increasing pressure on corporations to manage costs, coupled with the adoption of AI and other technologies, may lead to a greater uptake of AFAs in the coming years.

Looking ahead, Satkunas predicts that rates will continue to rise, but the legal industry will likely see changes in the business model as AI becomes more integrated into legal practices. She emphasizes the importance of in-house counsel investing in the right talent to assess their needs and determine which technologies will best address those needs. Additionally, as AI advances, more transactional work may become commoditized, potentially leading to increased adoption of AFAs for these components of legal matters.

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠

Contact Us: 

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads: @glambertpod or @gebauerm66
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠

Transcript

Marlene Gebauer 0:07
Welcome to The Geek in Review. The podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal profession. I’m Marlene Gebauer. And

Greg Lambert 0:14
I’m Greg Lambert. And we are very happy to welcome back. Kristina Satkunas, Director of Strategic Consulting at LexisNexis. CounselLink. Kris, welcome back to The Geek in Review. Welcome, Kris.

Kristina Satkunas 0:27
Thank you. Thank you thrilled to be here.

Greg Lambert 0:29
Seems like it was just this time last year that we had you on about the trends report. And so we get the new 2024 Trends report from LexisNexis. Council link is just out. I believe this is the 11th year my math is pretty bad. So is it the 11th year? Yep. See, guys. And Kris, you’ve, you’ve authored all of all 11. Right?

Kristina Satkunas 0:54
I have I know, it’s, it’s actually hard to believe that I think last year on cross the 10th year, kind of a shock to me to see us move into double digits. But yeah, it’s been a long time. And the report has pretty much always been my baby. It’s evolved a little bit over the years, which helps to keep it interesting. But yes, I have been the I have been the author.

Marlene Gebauer 1:17
So I mean, tell us a little bit about sort of the reasoning behind the report and how it’s how it’s evolved.

Kristina Satkunas 1:23
Yeah, so many years ago, more than 11 years ago, I was part of a team that had a vision that all of the data that flows through counseling is an asset, right? There’s an asset to all of that information related to matters and invoices that contains a lot of potential value, both for us at counseling, and more broadly, LexisNexis. But then for that industry, you know, as a as a whole. So we designed a benchmarking database, we call it insights. And within insight, we take all of the data related to matters and billing, when that comes to counseling, we normalize that data, we totally anonymize that data, and put that data into the separate database from a regular counseling recording database. And since then, we’ve been using that database for two primary purposes. So one that you may not be aware of is that our customers, every counseling customer has access to the benchmarks that come from that database. So it’s a standard sort of reporting module available to them. So they’re, they’re getting that data from that same data database that drives then the trends report, kind of the second big thing that we always do, based on that data to really focus on the metrics that are of greatest interest, they tend to be hourly rate related, not surprisingly, and then, but in addition to the annual Trends report, we do some ad hoc analysis of that data periodically, I’d say at least a couple of times a year, I’m digging through the data to answer some ad hoc questions, in addition to the trends report on metrics,

Marlene Gebauer 3:10
Can you give us some examples of the ad hoc analysis?

Kristina Satkunas 3:15
Yeah, so a, let’s see, I think it was about three years ago, somebody outside of our business, who I was talking to about Diversity, because it’s around the time that Diversity really kind of increased as a as a hot topic in our industry, asked if we could try to correlate billing rates, and, and gender and race data together. Because we, we clearly have billing rate data, it’s all over this Trends report. But we also are able to benchmark some Diversity related data for the Timekeepers that input that data into counseling, which is actually a lot because a lot of our customers require it. So I mean, that was one sort of ad hoc analysis that was really pretty compelling and informative that there is indeed a strong correlation between billing rates and gender and race and not in a non positive sort of way. And then another example, that comes to mind is one time I looked at, we called it the vendor tail sort of data. So what I mean by that is, typically for customers, they engage fewer than 10 firms for 80% of their work and percent of their spend is coming from a small number of firms, but then the rest of their firms make up what I call can in detail if you if you want to think about like a histogram, if your graph oriented like I am, how long is that tail, right? Because if you’re engaging 1000 firms, even if only 10 of them represent the bulk of your work. There’s a lot of administration involved in watching those. So we put out some statistics around that. It was separate from the, from the from the trends report.

Greg Lambert 5:04
Let’s jump into the report itself. And I think the kind of the big thing that jumped out was the amount of hourly rate increases for 2024. And the report talks about significant increases. I think a lot of us anecdotally felt that it’s good to have some, some numbers, some real data behind it. So why do you think this happened? And do you mind elaborating a little bit on on factors that you think increased in in 24? And how that differed from previous years?

Kristina Satkunas 5:37
Right? Yes. So I mean, I’m sure that when you first read the report, you’re just yawning. Wow, it’s not exactly earth shattering news that hourly rates are going up. Again, right, the sky is falling hourly rates are going up. And they’re going up a lot right there that that’s and I’ll elaborate a little bit more on just how much more they’ve gone up in the last year than they had in the past. On the surface, I think it’s fairly obvious as to why firms are increasing, why they increase their rates, right? It’s a lever, that law firms have always used to increase their revenue. And like any other business, law firms are under pressure to increase their revenue to offset increasing costs. So there is I think, an expectation that rates are going to increase. But the degree to which they’ve increased in the last year or two, relative to in prior years, is something to really think about a little bit more. So it’s an indication that firms are relying more on that lever, than other ones that they have in the past to manage their profitability. And that probably varies by law firm, right? Well, the other revenue related lever is to increase work to increase share of of work that you’re getting from, from corporations and other other types of businesses that are out there. But that’s probably a harder lever to pull right to get more business in the door. And then the the other side of the coin is managing costs, right? And everybody, I think does a good job of managing costs. But when it comes to cutting headcount, right, that’s where conversations get uncomfortable. It is clear to me that law firms in general are using the rate lever a lot more than they have in the past. Now, why they’re not using the other ones as much, I think is, is a question that I don’t I don’t have the magical answer to but but perhaps some of your audience well,

Greg Lambert 7:33
Well, Kris, I was wondering, you know, one of the things we’ve we’ve been hearing over the past couple of years, is just the hit from inflation. Just going out on a limb and guessing here, but do you think 2024, or 2023-2024, was just a time where everyone just expected larger than normal increases? And so this was kind of not just the regular lever that we pulled, but just one that everyone expects us to pull?

Kristina Satkunas 8:00
Yeah, it’s a good point. And I didn’t I didn’t mention it. Right, that is part of so costs have gone up more because of inflation, rather than have to cut heads, right. It’s it’s trying to increase revenue to prevent the need to do that. Yeah, I definitely think that’s coming into play as to why rates have gone up more in 2023. And in the year before that, as well, which is about the time that we saw these big increases in inflation. But you know, I think what the other side of that is that corporations are also fighting the same inflation, right. So so the increase in, in law firm rates is increasing their costs at disproportionate amounts as well, so that it’s a hard thing to manage within businesses, whether those businesses be law firms or other types of businesses. But yeah, it’s a good call.

Marlene Gebauer 8:51
Yeah, I want to dig in a little bit about sort of why those levers are pulled. I mean, is it does have to do with, okay, that’s what everybody else is doing. So we’re going to do that, too. How does the impact of specific practice areas influence the setting of hourly rates by law firms? You know, are there particular areas in general where rates are rising more sharply? Or does it depend on the focus and reputation of the firm or even individual practitioners? And what might be the driver? What might be driving these differences?

Kristina Satkunas 9:26
Yeah, practices are definitely a big differentiator. That in the fact is that there have always been certain practices that are perceived as higher value or whenever you might want to turn them but the market bears much higher rates for those practices, and they tend to be transactional ones like m&a, commercial, corporate, regulatory right there. They’re the ones that jump out but but also certain types of litigation like IP litigation, historically, there’s a much higher rate term people are willing to pay higher rates for IP litigation, the expertise and is needed or it to your point, Marlene, those practices, the probably the go to experts in those practices that I just rattled off are in the largest firms. Right? So it goes hand in hand that in the largest firms charge the highest rates, because they happen to have the lawyers that are in the practices that demand the highest rates, right. So those two things get tangled up together. But what I haven’t what I looked at this year that I don’t think I’ve ever done this before. Why, you know, I know that there is a those practices charge the highest rates, when we look at the rates, the amount to which they’re increasing, by which they’re increasing their rates, meaning on a percentage basis, right. So they’re already charging the highest rates, and then on a percentage basis, they’re able to command even a higher increases. And so it’s just the rich get richer, sort of analogy there. So as as an example. So we see, the overall average partner increase in 2023 was 5.4%. The average m&a partner increased their rates 8.4%. And they were already charging the highest rates, m&a commands done at the highest rates of all of the practices. So the median m&a partner rate is 2023 was $1,130, which is kind of eye opening a little bit eye opening to me, because it’s the first time that a median rate in any practice has crossed the $1,000 threshold. Right. $1,000 is totally common now. But to have the median rate be the at that level. So yeah, I mean, the it is interesting how these particular practices, because who’s going to walk away from your go to m&a firm, right, when you need them for a certain deal? If they’re going to raise their rates, chances are, you’re going to accept those increases from those firms, because you need them more than you do some for some of the practices

Marlene Gebauer 12:08
So like with this, this rate volatility, you know, among practice areas, I’m wondering what the broader implications are for law firms and their clients? You know, are some of these more supporting type of practices for the the high priced practices? Are they going to go by the wayside? How are firms going to be able to kind of justify kind of their existence if they can’t pull the same amount? Or if they are charging much more than say, you know, other firms that have similar practices in the market? Yeah. And I’m also interested in terms of predictability and legal spending and budgeting, because, again, this was a huge jump this year, you know, are we going to see more of that?

Kristina Satkunas 12:55
Well, I think one thing to keep in mind related to that we’re thinking about practice areas is that in times when transactions drop, right, that does become a real problem for large law firms in particular, right, you have kind of a concentration of partners and other lawyers that are in those practices. But as long as we are in more of a transactionally, rich sort of environment or economic environment, as I said, I think that corporations are going to, they need expertise to manage those types of matters, and they’re willing to pay for it. I don’t really see that changing in at least in the short term. But you know, one, as far as predictability. One thing that is really interesting that pops out from the analysis that I do is that while individual lawyers are raising their rates at record setting levels, especially in these high value practices, as I turned them, that the blended rates that we see at the master level are not increasing as much, or nearly as much so even for an m&a matter. I’m not seeing a What did I say an over an 8% increase for partners average increase? We’re not seeing anything near that level. I think it was more like a 2% increase for Mater level rates. So I mean, that means that

Greg Lambert 14:28
Yeah, that’s funny. That’s some funny math. How it How does that work out?

Marlene Gebauer 14:32
They’re leveraging something? I mean,

Kristina Satkunas 14:34
Yeah, I know it does sound like finding that. But I mean, that’s, that’s part of what makes me tick, when I’m looking at these numbers. Like that doesn’t add up. I wonder why. But it means that there there have to be other factors at play that are helping to mitigate those individual rate increases. So for many of our customers, who engage you know, a lot of law firms, they often require budgets for their matters. And as part of managing to those budgets, they pay closer attention to things like staffing. For example, if a partner raises her rate 20%, and now she’s charging $1,400 an hour, if that partner is limited to only be involved in that matter, when her very specific expertise is critical, right, that 20% increase, or that $1,400 rate doesn’t have much of an effect on the overall costs built on the matter. So we tend to think of leverage as we’re moving work away from partners to associates or things of that nature. But it really can be using partner a less than Partner B, right, that that leverage can occur within discrete groups as well. I mean, I think that corporate counsel are becoming more savvy to the levers they have available to them to help to not dictate the staffing, but to make sure that their law firms know that they’re paying attention to it. And asking for efficiency in his handling network is worth bringing up too, because we focus on I mean, every article you read is about individual rate increases, including, you know, the trends report that that’s our headline, right rates are increasing more than ever. But at the end of the day, it’s the big picture that matters. And it’s how you’re managing all the things that go along with individual hourly rates.

Greg Lambert 16:28
All I can hear my ear is Toby Brown saying, “This is how it should work,” its thing should be leveraged, down so that the right people are taking so in a way, I mean, this may be a win win, partners get their rate increase, but at the same time, you know, work can flow to where it needs to flow. Because I think if the partner rates are too low, the clients are expecting the partner to be doing most of not all the work because that’s who they know, and that’s who they trust.

Kristina Satkunas 17:00
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And you’re freeing up, then those really high end partners to go find more business or, you know, do things that are more appropriate for their level of expertise. Totally agree. Yep.

Marlene Gebauer 17:13
So do you think the adoption of emerging tech tools will influence the discussion around pricing? So I’ll give you an example Damien RIehl was on yesterday, and we were talking and it’s like he was talking about in house, you know, organizations, they compare pleadings to what their counsel has provided using AI. So and if if the AI is surfacing all the correct defenses or their emotional responses, you know, if if the work substantially the same, then they may not pay for that, you know, they’re only going to pay for what was truly value add from their counsel. So how do we get around these rate increases? Knowing that, you know, we have this type of capability to to just do things very quickly and very thoroughly?

Kristina Satkunas 18:05
Yeah, that is, it’s a conundrum. So I think that a, you know, our corporate customers are viewing that as cost savings opportunity, right? That we could be doing some of this work in house, we can get our own value or drive around Valley, and you don’t need to engage a law firm to do this. However, I mean, I would use I would the caveat I would give to that is, in my experience talking to our customer base, I think that corporate counsel are looking, they’re looking for best practices, right? They really want to know which technology and under what circumstances that it’s going to work, I think there’s still a lot of hesitation. So I do think that this will begin to affect those decisions that are made about rates. On the flip side of it, right, so I’m talking about if corporate counsel start using some of that technology, but also law firms will start utilizing that technology. Right. So what does that do to rates and expectations around rates for law firms? And what does that do to the law firm business model? You know, Greg, and I, you and I have talked about about that in greater depths in the past? I don’t have a crystal ball for that. But it is certainly it is there is no question that that is going to be applying pressure to the to the business models. We know it in our industry.

Greg Lambert 19:25
Yeah. Well keep keep on to that crystal ball, because we’ll come back to that that in a minute. Well, we talked about technology, we talked about hours, we talked about the hours causing a shift from big dollar partners to maybe you know, not not as big dollar partners. But one of the things that you constantly hear in conversations is that well, big law firms are going to go and become so expensive that this is going to open up the opportunity for all of the in house counsel to go flock to more of the middle market. Share err, but your reports showing that that may not be the case, at least for, you know, the past year. So why is it that you know, the law firms, big law firms are able to maintain and even grow the client base a little bit, even though they’re in they’re increasing their hours while your clients staying with them?

Kristina Satkunas 20:23
Yeah, it’s a great question. And it’s somewhere on my desk here. I have a article that came out sometime in the last couple of months with a headline that was saying a large law firm is starting to the Tillu share, they better beware sort of thing. And it’s part of why I looked at that data as part of our our trends report this year, because I thought, huh, we haven’t seen that in the past. Is that really happening? And you’re right, we don’t see it happening. Overall, we do see that big law and by big law, or large law, whatever you want to call it. We mean, firms that have 750 lawyers or more, and that is roughly Canada and law 100 sort of size bucket. But you know, I think we’ve alluded to this already. I think there are a few reasons that the obvious one is general counsel’s they are tasked with managing costs, but I would argue that optimizing results and protecting your organization, probably Trump’s managing costs to

Greg Lambert 21:23
no one’s been fired for hiring Kirkland or Latham.

Kristina Satkunas 21:27
Right, we’ve all heard it. They’re having good results with Kirkland or Latham, and they’ve worked with them for a long time, you know, it’s it would be a risk to change firms, regardless of the reputation of the the other firm in maybe they’ll take that risk if they are really under pressure to manage costs. And then the other part of it is, you know, not just that we’ve had good results, but there’s institutional knowledge that builds up over the years, that is a really important part of that decision as to which counsel to retain, to less of a degree. But another thing that comes into play is that many legal departments look to give a lot of work to one or a handful of firms across many practices, because they’re, they’re leveraging a volume discount, right. And so that incentivizes them to give them more work. And assuming that that volume discount really is a makes it worthwhile, I think it’s a legitimate reason to double down to hold on to those relationships. I do want to mention that. So in this report, if anybody reads into the the details of it in the section, where we talked about that analysis of the fact that Yep, large log continues to grow their share of wallet of spend, one thing I decided to do was to look more to a leading indicator of that, if you if you will, if I can connect geek out with that sort of terminology.

Greg Lambert 23:01
You’re on the right podcast for that.

Kristina Satkunas 23:05
So right, it’s a lagging indicator to say, oh, last year large law grew their market share. But a more leading indicator would be What about for the new matters that opened up last year? Which law firms were assigned those those matters? So can we look at the spend associated just with new matters. And there is a, I think, a glimmer of hope here hope that this prediction that companies will start to use kind of mid law firms, there is a slight shift from the largest firms. I’m not going to call it a trend because I don’t have enough years of data to show this and there is between practices. Some practices are using large while more summerlands and using it less, but overall, there is a slight shift. So so we’re going to add that actually add a metric to our ongoing reports that will become a another key metric in the trends report to show of the of the new matters that opened last year, what percentage of of the spend associated with down is coming from large law? So there may be a shift happening with new matters. I’m just not comfortable calling to try and at this point.

Greg Lambert 24:18
Well, speaking of of shifts and trends, going to jump on to I think one of your favorite topics, and that’s alternative fee arrangements. If I remember right, you’re pro AFA. Hi. Yeah. So it appears at least in a couple of practice areas, and it’s labor and employment and intellectual property, there seems to be more of a use of a ifas in those areas. So What trends are you seeing in the adoption of a ifas across to all the different practice areas in and what might do you think might encourage more AFA use?

Kristina Satkunas 24:56
Yeah, I’ve got my box of Kleenex is now revising. We’ve over this topic Yeah, sadly, there isn’t really in 11 years, there really isn’t an overall movement toward greater adoption of a ifas. So we we continue to see roughly 10% of matters that have some form of an AFA attached to them. And the two practices that you mentioned, though, are ones where I think corporate counsel has become more comfortable and continues to get more comfortable in establishing primarily fixed fees, due to the volume and more commoditized nature of employment work and IP work, the kind of patent prosecution work that lends itself to breaking it out by kind of stages and applying fixed fees to those. So you know, here, you know, so those are, at least there’s that little bit of, of attraction that we’re seeing in those areas, but it’s not enough to bring up the overall average. And I was looking, you know, I was looking for more signs of hope. So I dug more deeply into the data and tried to find specific customers of ours or corporations who, who have believed more toward alternative pricing, and have had success with them. And I reached out to to get some feedback and input from them. And mean, their feedback is consistent, that it requires a, I guess, I would say, an intentional effort, led by generally led by the in house lawyers, with support from their operational teams to help to validate the pricing arrangements that they that they get to. But you have to have that effort led by the in house attorneys, and then being willing to kind of pivot and try new things. If you’re not achieving the intended results, either the cost savings or the outcomes that you were hoping for. So I do still have hope that the industry is going to move forward in that direction. I’ll be it slowly. I don’t think there are enough evangelists speaking to not just the benefits of AFAs, but like, what is the process? What is the analytic process that you need to go through to arrive at a pricing agreement that really can be a win win arrangement between a legal department between the General Counsel and in a law firm, so maybe I need to be one of those evangelists slightly more than I have been, but we need more.

Greg Lambert 27:35
Yeah, Jeff Carr is out racing his race cars somewhere. We need another one.

There are others out there. Yeah, yeah.

Marlene Gebauer 27:43
So while AFAs were not one of the the new significantly changed elements in the 2024 edition of the trends report. What are some of the new and changed elements compared to previous years? And how do you think the changes enhance the reports utility for its users?

Kristina Satkunas 28:06
So I mentioned I don’t think I was, I didn’t say this part about that analysis that we did related to share wallet in which size law firms are, are receiving different types of work. So that analysis was part of what we called a market insights section in the trends report. So it’s not one of the key metrics that we report on every year. But the idea is that, that we think it’s important to have something fresh and new to add to the report each year, in addition to the standard key metrics to think about, well, what else should we be considering and maybe that eventually will turn into to something that we look at an on an ongoing basis. So in this particular case, as I mentioned, so we will start tracking that new metric next year related to the percentage of spend from new matters coming from large loss. So I’d certainly love to hear from either view or any of your listeners as to other things that you that people might be interested in us, either on an ad hoc basis or publishing more formally in this report, that we want to showcase and be able to help people make decisions based on last year, we did the same thing where we did a market insight topic related to the number of lawyers who bill over the lifetime of a single matter. You may remember that. So yeah, I think there’s there’s kind of a never ending set of questions that come up, that we can dig into and keeping the report fresh and useful for our customers is definitely predefined.

Marlene Gebauer 29:45
Well, that brings us to the crystal ball question and you’ve

Greg Lambert 29:49
She’s probably got the crystal ball under all those reports on her desk.

Marlene Gebauer 29:53
She does, like I can see it’s it’s right under it’s right under the frame. But so, you know, given the trends identified in this latest report, you know, we haven’t even looking back to two other ones and seeing if there’s there’s any trends, you know, what sort of predictions? Can you make about legal industries direction in the next two to five years?

Kristina Satkunas 30:14
All right, well, I’m gonna go out on a limb here. And yeah,

Greg Lambert 30:18
AFA’s!

Kristina Satkunas 30:22
The first place, I guess, I’m really not going out on a limb and said, I predict the rates will go up every year, probably even more. So yeah, that’s that I think we’re in that place. But I do, I do want to go out on a limb and talk about AFAs, right, so maybe it’s not going to be next year. But you know, I’d like to say that within five years, that we should start to see some uptick there. Because there’s just no way that corporations can continue to, to sustain these level of rate increases that they have, they have to rely on find some other pricing. And I think that AI is the other piece that that you threw out there, Marlene, that as we start introducing AI more, and having it become really part of the practices of of what lawyers are doing both for in house counsel and outside counsel, that that’s going to have an impact, as I said earlier on the business model. So exactly what my crystal ball answer to that is, I think that there’s going to be greater scrutiny to what that model looks like for law firms and what the effect of that should be for legal spending for corporations. And I, you know, I think that related to AI, and for legal departments in particular, you know, on the corporate side, I think that one of the most important things that GCs need to do is to invest in the right talent to help them understand, you know, whether new technology in which new technology is going to address their specific needs, right, rather than following the everybody else is doing this. So we should probably buy this software too, right to think about what their needs are, and make sure that they have the right people in place to assess those needs and what tools will best fit their needs. But certainly, there’ll be some changes coming to the technology that’s in place.

Greg Lambert 32:23
Yeah. Well, let me expand on that just a little bit. If you don’t mind, Kris. Because to me, I was thinking the the AI itself or the technology as it advances, to tie it back to the AFA is AFAs tend to work on things that are both in house counsel and outside counsel, deem as kind of table stakes stuff, just commodity stuff, labor and employment, IP, some some IP, maybe immigration issues. But as technology advances, I’m seeing maybe more of the transactional work may turn more commodity work. Do you think that’s something that’s on the horizon?

Kristina Satkunas 33:07
I most definitely do. Right? So it’s not it’s not to say that the entire transaction is commoditized. But there are individual components to it, that most certainly will be. And that’s that’s the key to start to figure out to break apart. The lifecycle of a matter. It’s a whole project management concept, right, of being able to determine which steps of that project really are more commoditized and can be handled by AI or or lower costing resources. Yeah.

Greg Lambert 33:38
Well, Kris Satkunas, from LexisNexis CounselLink, I want to thank you once again, for coming on the show and sharing with us the LexisNexis CouncilLink 2024 Trends Report.

Kristina Satkunas 33:50
Thank you.

Marlene Gebauer 33:51
Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me. And of course, thanks to all of you, our listeners for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoy the show, share it with a colleague, we’d love to hear from you. So reach out to us on social media. I can be found on LinkedIn or on X at @gebauerm and on Threads at @mgebauer66.

Greg Lambert 34:10
And I’ve decided just cut out the X and the Threads on just reach out to me on LinkedIn. That’s

Marlene Gebauer 34:16
That is definitely the best place you can reach me too.

Greg Lambert 34:20
So Kris, where can listeners find out more about the report when it’s out? And if they have other questions?

Kristina Satkunas 34:28
Yeah, I will. Second, your second and third, your your your answers that find me on LinkedIn. Reach out to me directly. I’ll be happy to get you in the right place to the right place. Also, you can visit counseling.com There is in that counseling with two L’s and there’s an insights tab there that you could download the report from as well if you want to want to get it directly without contacting me.

Marlene Gebauer 34:54
And we give great thanks to Jerry David DeCicca for the wonderful music you hear on the podcast each week. Thank you Jerry.

Greg Lambert 35:01
All right. Thanks everyone

Vanysacker shares the story behind Henchman’s founding, emphasizing the importance of solving a clear problem with a focused product strategy. The company’s mission is to unlock the collective knowledge within law firms and legal departments by connecting to their document management systems, recognizing contracts and clauses, and making this information easily accessible within Microsoft Word and Outlook.

Henchman serves both in-house legal teams and law firms, with a customer base spanning from boutique firms to AmLaw 200 firms. The platform addresses two main use cases: drafting transactions and assisting knowledge management teams in gaining data-driven insights to prioritize their work and boost relevant knowledge in search results.

The discussion also touches on Henchman’s integration with Microsoft Copilot, which aims to provide more accurate results when drafting contracts by leveraging the structured data and metadata within the platform. The company’s European perspective is reflected in its language-agnostic system, which works seamlessly with multiple languages, making it an attractive solution for global law firms.

Looking ahead, Vanysacker and Thierens discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by generative AI in the legal industry. While acknowledging the potential of large language models, they emphasize the importance of context and accuracy in transactional work. Henchman’s approach is to use AI as a tool to enhance their product, focusing on providing the next best options rather than just the next best words, ultimately aiming to become the “Chief of Staff” for each legal professional.

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠

Contact Us: 

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads: @glambertpod or @gebauerm66
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠

Transcript

Marlene Gebauer 0:00
This podcast focused, innovative and creative ideas. I’m more than

Jeroen Thierens 0:14
And I’m Greg Lambert.

Marlene Gebauer 0:16
As you could tell from the opening music, this is one of our regular shows where we look into the industry and find innovative people to bring on and discuss what they’re doing in in advancing the legal profession. We’re

Jeroen Thierens 0:27
really excited to welcome Jeroen Thierens, Strategic Account Advisor and Jorn Vanysacker, co founder from Henchman Jeroen and Jorn, welcome to The Geek in Review.

Yeah, thank you for having us.

Marlene Gebauer 0:43
So you’re in before we jump into some of the really great things that you’re doing and the growth of Henchman in the past couple of years. Could we get you to give us a brief overview of Henchman and why you found it?

Jorn Vanysacker 0:54
Yeah, of course, Marlene. So hey, I’m Jorn . I’m one of the three co founders at Henchman today. We’re 40 Very talented, techies together building Henchman. We started in 2020. And yeah, we’re based out of Belgium, but we have more than 170 customers in more than 30 countries of which the US is the biggest country that we serve at the moment. And it all started, I mean, Gilles [Mattelin], myself, we had a previous company, which was building HR tech, and back in 2013 2014. And yeah, I mean, we were building a suite solution, we were building something for performance management reviews for employee engagement measurement at the time. And I remember we had one competitor called Peakon. And they just did employee engagement in a very data driven manner, very, very kind of vertical in terms of product strategy, we were really inspired by them. And they ended up selling to Workday for $800 million, something like that. And we got acquired in 2019, for a very small fraction of that amount at the time. But Gilles and myself, we had a very clear idea of like, okay, if we want to do something next, what’s our next project going to be? And it had to be something that solved a very clear problem, and must have products had to say, and with a very strong focus in terms of what we wanted to solve and for who we wanted to solve it. So we went up into the direction of okay, well, as you had to fill in a lot of RFPs. And he was very frustrated with the fact that you always get these long lists of questions. And he remembered that he has given very similar answers, like let’s say, two months ago. And so he thought of an idea of like, let’s create a technology that could recognize similar answers I’ve given to similar questions from my database. And so we had lunch with the legal professionals that assisted us in the acquisition of the previous company. And they were like, Guys, this is what we do on a daily basis, like looking for stuff we’ve done in the past. And so in that lunch meeting, we pivoted to the entire idea of Henchman to legal and that’s how we got into legal. And so what Henchman does is built for legal professionals today that draft and negotiate complex contracts, the transactional kinds. And the two challenges we solve for them are the first of all, when drafting these complex contracts, they tend to open up a lot of contracts, a lot of folders looking for that one clause they have in mind, and you know, if they don’t find that they ask a colleague, have you ever done something like this? And then the second thing, and it’s more of an opportunity, really, is the fact that we, you know, they all these legal firms are these organizations that sit on a lot of contracts a lot of data, and it’s often very unstructured. And so with the right tech, you can really use that data as a lever for your, you know, legal colleagues, but also, of course, your clients. And that’s really what we’re obsessing about with Henchman unlocking that collective knowledge.

Jeroen Thierens 4:02
I have to have to ask, who’s the harder industry to deal with HR or legal?

Jorn Vanysacker 4:08
I was, I was I, it’s a good question. I was a bit of fried in the beginning to be honest of, you know, legal professionals and you know, would they be mean, and but I have to say, I like them a lot more than then HR professionals, because they’re men, especially the transactional kind of lawyers. That’s the ones that we work with the most today. They’re very constructive in nature, right there deal makers. And in that sense, it’s been a real joy building Henchman together with them. Yeah.

Jeroen Thierens 4:39
I would much rather talk to a to a transactional lawyer than to the HR team. So sorry, you were gonna go on?

Jorn Vanysacker 4:50
Yeah. Well, I mean, I think when when we started off Henchman, we were product people, right? We’re tech people. We were not legal people for as founders, so we were forced to really understand the problem very well. And so we still do a lot of workshops on a monthly basis with our customers and prospects. But two things became very clear to us during those conversations. So first of all, legal professionals are very, very busy people. And second, and I say this with the utmost respect, they’re not too tech savvy. And so whatever you’re building in legal right has to be something that works for them, rather than something that has to be set up by them in order to get value out of it. And so that’s really been our main objective when building Henchman and so the way we built Henchman works for our customers is that first of all we connect to their document management systems can be iManage, NetDocuments, SharePoint does matter. And we will just plug and play, there is no setup required no preparation of folder structuring requirements. And then the second phase Henchman recognizes what are contracts and what are not. And then Henchman will isolate all the call clauses and definitions from those contracts, it will mirror the permissions that are in place in the DMS, we will recognize the associated metadata to those contracts. And we will create metadata on the process and all of those clauses like per customer, we easily have a couple of million of clauses and definitions that we process. All of those millions of clauses and definitions are accessible within Microsoft Word or Outlook. And so yeah, if you look at our customer base, I would say 20% of our revenue is in house legal teams and 80% is law firms with a very widespread from, let’s say, boutique firms to Yeah, you know, AmLaw 200 firms.

Marlene Gebauer 6:41
So I’m curious, you know, in working with firms, are you hearing, you know, what types of reasons, are they sort of needing the clauses surfaced? I mean, is it primarily like we need precedent to, because based on what we sort of have done before, are they looking? Or they’re sort of more, is there more sort of an analytic bent to it like saying, Okay, what have we done in certain instances? And, you know, what have we agreed to in certain cases where we maybe haven’t and others? And why? Anything like that?

Jeroen Thierens 7:16
Maybe I can think that question, Jorn, talking to a lot of law firms. I think it’s indeed, definitely also the letter, Marlene, there’s a lot of data in there. Indeed, that is now not really accessible or don’t have a lot of insights in that. And indeed, Henchman surfaces that knowledge and with all the metadata around that, it’s very easy to get a better understanding of how we did similar things in the past that we can apply now. For example, in transactions, it’s always compared a bit with a chess game. It’s always nice if you know if it’s what you can do a few steps ahead. It’s the same. And if you indeed can leverage Henchman and have insights in how we’ve done similar things in the past, then can really help you in this current transaction as well. So we see this really resonates a lot with our customers and our and our prospects. So that’s one thing. Actually, I see two main use cases. And while there’s one very major use case, this is all about the drafting the transactions, what I just explained. But also we see a lot of interest from people and dealing with knowledge management, in Henchman. Yeah, of course, we are originally a Belgian company, we focused on Europe first before crossing the pond to the US. And yeah, of course, in the in Europe, Knowledge management is very established for a long time already, especially in UK firms. But also in the Nordics. I focused a lot on the Nordics in the past. And as Jorn also said earlier, we focus heavily on doing workshops with our customers, just this week, our product team went to Stockholm in Sweden to have a product workshop just on knowledge management. And then this gives some very nice insights and how we can further build our product as well. So also for knowledge managers, or PSLs Henchman is aiming to give a lot of insights, data that helps them in their job, for example, it can help them when they see that certain clause are searched for a lot, they can prioritize their work through that kind of clauses. Whereas if certain contracts are rarely searched for then you know, as a knowledge management team, okay, this is not the type of work that our customers do a lot. So our customers, or our lawyers do a lot. So let’s not put too much time on that. It really helps also in strategy, strategizing, where to put your time and efforts as a team and yeah, to put it a bit more broadly. Yeah, when talking to US law firms now at least, a big part of them indeed has a knowledge management team in place, but that’s definitely not the case for Are all of them. Some of them haven’t always focused on knowledge management. But I see this is really changing. A lot of the AmLaw 200 firms we’re talking to attention, really want to step up their game when it comes to knowledge management. And they’re looking at two things in that regard, either hiring more KM people, but definitely also looking at technology to further automate this. And they’re often looking at a tool like Henchman to do this, because, indeed, we give them a lot of insights, data driven insights in their current knowledge. Yeah, to to really stimulate that knowledge work. And with the insights they gather from Henchman, they can also make sure that certain knowledge get boosted in the search of Henchman. That’s lawyers see this first. So yeah, we really see that there’s a lot of interests also from a KM perspective in Henchman when it comes to that.

Yeah, let me let me pick up on the the technology because I and we’ll get back to the the Europe versus us a little later. But a lot of US KM teams look at km as a technology, whereas it’s more of a personnel kind of a process in Europe. But I’m gonna want to focus in on the the US centric and that’s the leveraging the technology to to help with the knowledge management. And I know you guys are using Microsoft Copilot to help with the drafting experience. So for the legal professionals that are using the product, and specifically, you are looking at the firm’s document management system, or the corporation’s document management system, if they’re lucky enough to have one. You know, and so for us km folks, this is kind of the holy grail that we know there’s a lot of data inside our DMS that we would like to leverage to improve our km process. So how are you guys using Copilot to help with that?

Yeah, sure. So indeed, I would situate copilot more in the first use case I explained to the where legal professionals, lawyers, practicing lawyers are using co-pilot. The reason why we start building that integration we currently have with copilot is actually because yeah, in those conversations I, for example, have with AmLaw 100 firms, the big majority of them, if I may say so is experimenting with with Co-pilots. And what I hear there quite often is that it’s a great productivity tool. It really helps in both Outlook, drafting emails or in Word, Excel is great for general productivity. And that’s, of course, always the goal of Microsoft, they always want to stimulate general productivity. But when it comes to the more, deep legal work, if I may say so such as drafting contracts, it’s not, it’s not there yet. With the co-pilot, what I hear quite often is indeed, when you give a prompt, for example, give me 10 liability clauses written in an SBA by this specific colleague in the last year, then co-pilots will give you some kind of answer based on your data. But it’s not always accurate. For example, if you then open these sources, those contracts, sometimes there is not even a correct liability clause, and they’re the one you want it. So it’s not working that well when it comes to that and what Henchamn is really good at and what you’re already briefly touched upon earlier. We’re good at in that indexing those clause definitions coming from the document management system, we structure them in a very good way in our in our software, together with all the relevant metadata attached to that. And that really helps co pilots because the integration as we build it right now is that when people make a promise in CO-pilot in the like, give me them liability clauses written in an SBA by Marlene, for example, in the last year, then cooperate with make an API call to Henchman and Henchman, which returned results to the user through co pilot. And then of course, you have way more accurate results than when it’s just co-pilot that you’re using, again, because we have so much metadata attached to those clauses that are structured very well. So yeah, we see that this resonates very well in the last weeks. And we also hosted a webinar on this together with our partners, iManage and Microsoft, and yeah, your that was crazy, right? We did it in the Microsoft HQ here in Brussels. And I think, what was it 1,800 people subscribed for it. It was Yeah. Wow. Yeah. There’s a lot of interest for the copilot. Yeah, integration for sure. Yeah.

Just to follow up quickly on that, why co-pilot and why not one of the other platforms?

I think Microsoft is everywhere in legal. Yeah, I’ve had I’ve never encountered any law firm, for example, that is using the Google workspace instead of Microsoft. And copilot is basically a new kind of interface and Microsoft decides Word, Outlook, you now also have copilot. So, henchman wants to be aware the lawyer is and that is, that is Microsoft that is copilot. Yeah.

Jorn Vanysacker 15:27
I think the majority of our customers or prospects are experimenting with copilot.

Jeroen Thierens 15:34
Now, it’s crazy. Are you guys experimenting with this? Or are you not able to disclose this on a podcast?

We’re experimenting with everything. Now, whether or not we’re actually implementing something that’s a different story.

Marlene Gebauer 15:52
I’m curious, though, with with copilot. I mean, are you getting any feedback from firms about security concerns? And sort of Microsoft’s ability, you know, perhaps to sort of see content prompts?

Jeroen Thierens 16:07
Yeah, that’s definitely a good question. When it comes to the co pilot, the copilots itself there actually, Microsoft has switched off that abuse monitoring, I think. So there is no security issue when it comes to that or confidentiality issue. And of course, integration with Henchman. Yeah, there we have all the security measures we have in place as a vendor. We are ISO certified and up to date to compliance and we’re constantly monitoring our security. So when it comes to copilots, specifically, yeah, we don’t see any security or confidentiality issue.

Marlene Gebauer 16:48
So Henchman originally a European company got a lot of traction with clients in Europe, for as you said, crossing the pond to the to the US with, you know, clients like you know, Goodwin or Lowenstein. How does the European perspective affect US clients? And also, we’re talking about like US clients, but but also I imagine a lot of these clients have internationally. I mean, they have offices outside of the US. And, you know, is there a difference? I guess, in terms of of approach?

Jeroen Thierens 17:29
Yeah, I think that ties a bit back to the knowledge management perspective, indeed, that in Europe, we’ve gathered a lot of insights on how to build technology that assists in knowledge management. So we’ve built those, yeah, those insights in our product. And we see that a lot of US firms are very interested in that. But also, I think our Europeans perspective is affected is also reflected in the fact that Henchman is a language agnostic system. Just our home country, Belgium, there already three languages just in our own country. So for us, it was really important from day one to build a product that works. And not just in English, but also all the other European languages that are out there. So you also mentioned Goodman, for example, Marlene, their Paris office, for example, is also using henchman because, yeah, it’s works perfectly in French as well. So I think that’s something unique about Henchman, the fact that it doesn’t only work in English, but also in a lot of other languages, and especially the large US firms that are active globally. I’m sure a lot of interest in that specific part of Henchman as well. Yeah.

So I wanted to get back to the the AI buzz which you can’t have a conversation without talking. Yeah, exactly. So how are you guys approaching this? What do you see? Or how do you see AI fitting in to your product? And I really want to kind of think about this, because we’ve had this conversation now for the last 15-16 months. And one of the things that I think a lot of people remember but tend to kind of deprioritize is especially when you’re dealing with with contracts, you want very specific things in your contract. You don’t want a lot of creativity, especially on unmonitored creativity sneaking into the contracts. So where do you where do you see AI fitting into Henchman to keep, you know, the solid thing solid, but to the where it would would be at the most advantage to take take advantage of the AI.

Marlene Gebauer 19:53
How do we keep it precise?

Jorn Vanysacker 19:54
I think it’s I mean, legal legal world has had you know, two quite powerful waves have to say, you know, you had COVID, everyone had to go into the clouds, that was definitely something that, you know, shook the foundations of a lot of firms. And then you had Genie AI ChatGPT arriving. And, of course, it’s something that we and our clients experimented with a lot at the time, there was a lot of uncertainty of what is this going to do a lot of confusion? What will it be able to do? I mean, people thought it was going to change everything, right. And of course, now, we realize now that the dust has settled what the potential and limitations are of generative AI, and similar technologies. And I mean, we see a lot of I mean, in a year from now, we’ll look back, and we’ll see a lot more legal tech startups emerging that have, you know, build something around, like, you know, wrappers around Large Language Models, such as GPT. And if we look at the use case that we serve, the transactional contracting and negotiation, as you mentioned, Greg has to be what it has to be right? It has to be correct. And so the way we kind of, you know, walk, walk people through it is like, let’s say that you, you make a prompt, and you ask it to write a liability clause, right? Then it will generate something, of course, it’s not going to be sufficient, but then some firms are like, but what if we connect it to our database, then it would, you know, play our tone of voice in within that prompt, and they’re probably right, right. And so you get a result that sounds a bit like the firm, it feels like the firm, but within the transactional work, you will always be left insecure of whether you are comfortable using that in this situation, because is this something that my senior partner that I’m writing this for would approve? Is something that we typically use within this type of contracts. And so in that sense, you miss contexts, and you make you miss context in order to make very confident decisions in your work. And so you need that element of contextuality, which Henchman is really good at in terms of finally retrieving that from your DMS, attaching the meta data and kind of funneling that to you when and where you need it. And that’s really how we see our unique position. I mean, it really helped us it was a it was a true blessing for us. Because we now look at Large Language Models in general as a tool to serve, to serve use cases much better and much faster. But it’s not the core of our products, etc. And so we look at use cases all the time. And then we compare different LLM, we have a multi LLM philosophy, so to say, we compare different LLMs to different use cases that we look to solve our customers could be, you know, pluralizing clauses for them, or kind of how can you semantically compare clauses to one another, in let’s say, like a matrix view, right? It’s very good at structuring text. So that’s what we like to use it for. And so in that sense, we, we build use cases, we build out the desired outcomes, and then we measure LLM results against one another. Also taking into account certain specifications such as, you know, risk of hallucination, costs could definitely be one as well speed as well. And those things we constantly take into accounts. And so I think, if you look at Gen AI, if you look at copilots, in general, they’re actually quite reactive in nature, right? You ask it something, and it gives you something. It’s often connected to a data set, which it’s conscious of, but it’s not factual. Right. So it’s very good at providing you with the next best words, so to say. Whereas at henchman, we’re all about going beyond that. We’re not building a copilot, we are building the Chief of Staff for each legal professional. And the Chief of Staff is someone who is very data driven, very strategic, and he or she will, you know, will approach you when he or she thinks it’s necessary. So very proactive in nature. And so, for us, a Chief of Staff is all about providing you with the next best options, rather than providing you with the next best words. And that’s what we’re all about. That’s how we you know, use Gen AI, ai and Large Language Models to kind of contribute to that mission.

Marlene Gebauer 24:30
So this is the part in the podcasts where we ask our guests our crystal ball question. So Jorn and Jeroen, what do you see as a change or challenge that you’ll need to address in Henchman or, or the industry as a whole over the next two to five years?

Jeroen Thierens 24:53
I think when it comes to the industry as a whole I’ll throw a word Gen AI.

Marlene Gebauer 25:01
What’s the what’s the what’s the biggest challenges for free? There’s so many. But if you had to pick one or two, what would those be?

Jeroen Thierens 25:10
Yeah, I can definitely think of something you

Marlene Gebauer 25:13
We could have an entire podcast on that topic.

Jeroen Thierens 25:16
Yeah. Something more specific I thought about when it comes to Gen AI, is the fact that certain Yeah, Gen AI products require a lot of new skills from lawyers. I’m not talking about Henchman. But there’s a lot of Gen AI tools where you need to do a lot of prompting. That’s very interesting, of course, but there’s a whole new skill set needed for that, and that the big majority of people don’t have today. So I think a lot of new skills are needed there. And especially change management when it comes to back that I think people really have to change the way they work, and learn to do prompting. And I think that will be quite a challenge in the coming years. So that’s a specific thing. When it comes to Gen AI in law, that will be an interesting challenge, I think in the coming years.

Jorn, how about you??

Jorn Vanysacker 26:16
Well, I think what I am a big believer of, of knowledge, the concept of knowledge in legal and it has increased significantly in the last year. And I feel like, you know, all the big law firms, all the leading law firms realize that as well, like, it’s their competitive advantage against other law firms. It’s their competitive advantage of getting their people as performant and ramped and quickly ramped as possible. And it’s instilling like a sharing mindset. Within those organizations, which is have obviously it’s a cultural thing, right? You know, it’s a people thing to people, person to person thing. But that can be a real enabler to instill a sharing mindset within those organizations. And I think the law firms that are focusing on that and you know, striving to be successful at instilling a sharing mindset, they will remain to be very successful. And I think knowledge is a very important ingredient in achieving that.

Jeroen Thierens 27:20
Set, I saw Marlene jumped, jumped off and back on and I think the wrong equipment is on. So I get to wrap this thing up. Well, sorry about the technical difficulties at the end there but Jeroen Thierens, Strategic Account Advisor and a Jorn Vanysacker, co founder at Henchman, I want to thank both of you so much for coming on and talking with us at The Geek in Review.

Thank you.

Jorn Vanysacker 27:53
Thanks for having us.

Jeroen Thierens 27:54
All right. And then here I am is Marlene. So and, of course, thanks to all of you for listening to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoy the show, please share it with colleague. We’d love to hear from you. So reach out to us we can be found on social media. Marlene is on LinkedIn and on X at @gebauerm and on threads at gay Bauer M six. I’m sorry, @mgebauer66. And I can be reached on LinkedIn or on X at @glambert. Jeroen and Jorn, where’s the best place for people to reach out if they want to learn more?

Yeah, definitely LinkedIn as well. My name is Jeroen Thierens. I’m very active on LinkedIn. Also Henchman as a company is very active on LinkedIn. You should definitely check out Steve Lits. He’s the best guy. He’s our main character on LinkedIn. You should definitely check him out. You can find him on LinkedIn as well.

Yeah, I’ve watched a few of those videos those are those are great. If the audience hasn’t seen the videos good to go check those out those that’s worth the price of admission right there.

Jorn Vanysacker 29:04
Thanks so much for having us guys.

Greg Lambert 29:05
All right. Thanks, guys. Thanks Marlene!

One of the major developments is the enhanced document analysis feature. Users can now upload legal documents, such as complaints, and vLex’s AI will automatically extract key information including claims, facts, parties involved, and potential legal defenses. This eliminates the tedious manual process of reviewing and analyzing documents, saving lawyers significant time and effort. Additionally, the platform suggests relevant legal research questions based on the document’s content, further expediting the research process.

vLex’s advancements directly address the growing concerns surrounding prompt engineering in legal tech. By automating key analytical tasks, the platform empowers lawyers to focus on higher-level strategizing and client interactions, rather than spending hours crafting the perfect prompts for AI tools. Riehl echoes the sentiment of OpenAI’s Sam Altman, believing that successful AI integration should render prompt engineering obsolete. He acknowledges that the option to fine-tune prompts remains, similar to Boolean search techniques, but emphasizes that vLex aims to make it a choice rather than a necessity.

The potential impact on the legal industry is substantial. Clients, especially large corporations, can leverage vLex’s capabilities to analyze past legal actions and assess the value provided by their law firms. This transparency could lead to a shift from billable hours to flat-fee arrangements, incentivizing efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

Further amplifying vLex’s potential, the company welcomes Daniel Hoadley, a renowned legal tech expert, to lead their research and development team. Hoadley’s expertise in data science and large language models promises exciting advancements in harnessing the power of vLex’s vast legal document database. With a robust roadmap of projects, vLex’s is poised to continue pushing the boundaries of legal technology and shaping the future of legal practice.

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠

Contact Us: 

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads: @glambertpod or @gebauerm66
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠

Transcript

Marlene Gebauer (00:00.398)
Welcome to the Geek in Review. We have a special news announcement that we’re bringing to you. So breaking news, we have Damian Real here from Vlex and he’s got some exciting news to tell us. So Damian, Damian, what’s going down?

Damien Riehl (00:15.734)
Two really exciting things that we’re doing. Number one was regarding the product. We have some really cool features that we’re releasing. And then number two, we have a great hire. So we’re really excited about the stuff that we’re building and the stuff that people were hiring to build other cool things. Let’s do the stuff that we’re building first. So we, in the past, have been able to, you could ask a legal question.

Marlene Gebauer (00:31.246)
What are we going to do first?

Okay.

Damien Riehl (00:39.19)
And we would provide an answer to that legal question in about two minutes. And it will include non -hallucinated cases, statutes, and regulations. We’ve had that now for many months. The second skill is that if you want to compare jurisdictions, say a 50 -state survey or a multiple -country survey, you could be able to do that multi -country survey. Number three, if you wanted to be able to build an argument, that is, make a more argumentative one to find the other side of an argument, you could be able to do that. We’ve had that for a bunch of months.

But what’s really new is we’ve built out in a big way our document skill. So you can upload one or many documents. And then once those documents are uploaded, we could be able to do really fun things with those documents. So for example, for litigation workflows, I could be able to take a particular case like the New York Times and the system, Vincent AI will be able to say, oh, that looks like a lawsuit alleging copyright infringement. It will know it’s a complaint. And then it will programmatically be able to say what it will do for every complaint.

That is extracting all the claims, extracting all the facts, extracting the relief, figuring out what parties are in the lawsuit, finding legal defenses. This is the work of the lawyer and be able to say, what questions should I ask my client? It does this all out of the box, no prompting necessary. Find your documents out of 800 million dockets and documents. You could do that here and then find legal research questions in green that are customized for this particular case. What are exclusive rights for copyright holders and AI and ML?

So really all these things are right out of the box. And we think that this might be the first.

Marlene Gebauer (02:07.726)
Oh, I see. So you don’t even, do you have to click on the button or is it all like down if you just scroll down?

Damien Riehl (02:10.262)
Yeah, so you click on the button, click on the button and then say I want to extract and analyze all the claims. If you do that, and then here’s copyright infringement. Here’s the governing law. It’s federal, not state. Here are the facts for that claim and here are the parties for that claim. We do that analysis for every single one. Timeline of facts. Here’s the analysis for that. All the parties involved. Here’s all the rules for each of the holding companies, et cetera. What is the relief? They’re looking for money. They’re looking for an injunction. They’re looking to destroy Chachi PT.

What defenses? Maybe you want to argue fair use. Maybe you want to be able to argue other things. What questions should I ask the New York Times? What questions should I ask OpenAI? What questions is my legal research question? And now here’s 45 cases, statutes and regulations and administrative decisions and the memorandum that you can see here. Again, I don’t need to prompt at all. This is all right out of the box. So this is a, this is, we think that.

Probably the future where you as a user don’t have to be a prompt engineer, we’ll just tell you all of the cases that are like yours. We’ll give you all of the claims. We’ll give you all the facts. And you as a user are really just able to be able to just do your work like God intended.

Marlene Gebauer (03:21.23)
So a couple of things, I mean, this is really a big deal because I mean, there’s been a lot of discussion about prompting and the challenges of prompting and how that sometimes is a deterrent for people using the systems. And you have basically made this easy for people. You don’t really have to think about crafting something like that. Yeah.

Damien Riehl (03:45.878)
That’s exactly right. When Sam Altman was on stage, I saw him at a talk and someone asked him, what do you think of the ascendance of prompt engineering as a field? And Sam Altman said, ugh, I hope that’s not a thing in a year. He said, because if we’re doing our job correctly, you won’t have to be a prompt engineer. You just ask a question and we’ll give you the answer. So in that way, I agree with Sam. I think that if I’m doing my job correctly, we at Vlex will be doing all the prompt engineering for you. And you as a user just do the legal things that you do so well.

Marlene Gebauer (04:14.542)
But, you know, the librarian in me has to say, it’s like, well, you know, I’ve, I’ve seen these like, you know, if you want, if you want to, you know, this is what you want. You know, it’s like, here’s, here’s the, the, the can search. Um, and sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t work. So, I mean, do you have the flexibility to kind of make adjustments if, if it’s not exactly what you’re looking for?

Damien Riehl (04:36.47)
Yeah, if you want to be a prompt engineer, absolutely. You can go ahead and do that prompt engineering. And if you’re not getting quite the answers you want, yes, absolutely do the prompt engineering if you’d like. Mostly what we’re thinking is that that is an optional thing rather than a mandatory thing, that you don’t have to prompt engineer, but you certainly can if you’d like.

Marlene Gebauer (04:54.254)
All right, so the expert prompters aren’t dead quite yet.

Damien Riehl (04:57.238)
100%. Yeah, much like Boolean searches from years gone by, you can be able to use those. Exactly. It’s still beautiful. But yeah, I think that the more we’re doing our jobs, and the weird place that we’re in with large language models is that the large language models can actually improve prompts. That is, you’d be able to say to the large language model, take this prompt and maybe make it better for GPT -5 or GPT -6 or Lama 3, whenever it comes out.

Marlene Gebauer (05:00.654)
Still kicking.

Damien Riehl (05:24.086)
So we’re in a weird space that the human ability to prompt is maybe decreasing in necessity as the large language models themselves learn how to improve prompts.

Marlene Gebauer (05:35.278)
Um, so how much time do you think this actually saves? I mean, you basically like distill that entire workflow and, and I’m just curious, like, how much time do you think?

Damien Riehl (05:48.854)
A lot of time? Yeah. When I litigated for a big law firm, the amount of time that I think it would have taken for an associate to do what I just showed on my screen, I would estimate maybe 40 or 50 hours. That would be a full week’s worth of work to be able to develop all the analyses, to be able to do the research. So maybe 40 or 50 hours, and it takes just minutes, not hours. And so the real question is,

Marlene Gebauer (05:49.966)
It’s kind of crazy. It’s like, it’s like, boom, it’s done. And, and.

Damien Riehl (06:17.558)
What is the effect on the market? So we sell to law firms, obviously. We also sell to their clients, corporations. So we have Fortune 50 companies that are using this and are saying, wow, this is amazing. What we’re going to do is two things. Thing number one is we’re going to take all the complaints that were filed against us in the last year, run it through the system, and then compare it with what our law firms did and say, what did they do on top of it, if anything? If the answer is nothing, they didn’t do anything in addition, that’s going to say something.

And then they said going forward, what we’re going to do is we’re going to take every new complaint that we received and we’re going to run it through this before we send it to the law firm. And then we’re going to send this output to the law firm. And then we’re going to say, what can you do on top of this? Because really that’s all we’re going to pay you for. All we’re going to pay you for is the ability to be able to, right, we’re not going to pay you to recreate the wheel. So I think we think that this provides law firms that are forward thinking and the clients that are forward thinking with their law firms to be able to do a lot more work.

Marlene Gebauer (07:03.15)
the extra.

Damien Riehl (07:13.622)
and more efficiently and to be able to do more work. And maybe this ushers in going from the hourly model to the flat fee model, where maybe you’d be able to say if it would have taken 50 hours in the hourly model, maybe charge a flat fee of the equivalent of maybe 20 hours or something. And then it will maybe take only three hours to do the thing instead. And then you can be able to make all of that extra in profit. That might be one of the future worlds that we’re looking at.

Marlene Gebauer (07:32.238)
Yeah.

Marlene Gebauer (07:39.31)
pricing people are going to have their hands full. So let’s talk about this exciting new hire that you have.

Damien Riehl (07:41.302)
Indeed.

Damien Riehl (07:47.382)
Yes, Dan Hoadley out of the UK, formerly of Mishcon de Reya LLP, is now going to be starting with us as of I think today. So he is, for those who know the legal tax circuit, he has a brilliant, brilliant mind. He’s really not only a brilliant mind and doing really some cutting edge work for Mishcon de Reya LLP and was working with an amazing team with them, but he’s also a really wonderful, nice human being. If you’ve ever met Daniel, he is really…

a good person and we really couldn’t be more thrilled that he’s joining us. He’s going to be leading up our research and development team where he’s going to be thinking deeply about how we can take our billion legal documents and be able to do data science on those billion legal documents and be able to extract what’s needed from those and then be able to run large language models across them. So we think that Dan is really an exciting, exciting addition to our team.

marlene (08:41.038)
That’s terrific. So do you have any kind of up and coming projects for him that are like on the roadmap?

Damien Riehl (08:48.534)
We do. So the Skunk Works, which Ed Walters, yeah, so Ed Walters and Angel and Robin on our Skunk Works team, we have lots, we have a list, our arms length long. And so it’s really, the next is gonna be an embarrassment of riches. Of that long, long list, what are we gonna do first? And that’s what Dan gets to figure out. So yeah, so stay tuned. There are gonna be some really good things coming out of Dan’s R &D team.

marlene (08:50.894)
that you can talk about.

marlene (09:12.814)
That is terrific. Well, welcome, Dan, and congratulations, Villex, and Damien, thank you for joining us.

Damien Riehl (09:19.382)
Thank you so much for having me.

Dashboard Legal, born from Rotenberg’s experience as a practicing attorney, focuses on streamlining project management and collaboration processes for lawyers. By integrating Dashboard Legal’s features with Bloomberg Law’s existing tools, such as AI-powered contract solutions, the combined platform seeks to provide a comprehensive legal workstation that addresses the pain points of managing the increasing complexity and volume of information in legal work.

The acquisition also presents an opportunity to leverage generative AI in a hyper-context-sensitive manner, allowing lawyers to access relevant information and perform tasks like document comparison and compliance checks within a secure, controlled environment. This approach aims to address law firms’ concerns about data privacy and control while still harnessing the power of AI.

Breda and Rotenberg emphasize the potential for the combined platform to serve not only large law firms but also small to mid-sized firms and in-house legal departments. The user-friendly interface and accessibility of Dashboard Legal, coupled with Bloomberg’s resources and credibility, make it an attractive solution for legal professionals across the board.

As the integration process begins, Rotenberg will join Bloomberg Law’s senior leadership team, working closely with Breda to expand the platform’s capabilities and deliver on the promise of an AI-enabled, content-rich legal workflow solution. The acquisition marks an exciting development in the legal technology landscape, with the potential to significantly improve the way lawyers work and collaborate.

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠

Contact Us: 

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads: @glambertpod or @gebauerm66
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠ and Eve Searls

Transcript:

Marlene Gebauer 0:06
Welcome to The Geek in Review. Podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal profession. I’m Marlene Gebauer.

Greg Lambert 0:13
And I’m Greg Lambert. And today we have a special episode where we’re bringing on our friend Joe Breda . And he is president of Bloomberg Law, and Mathew Rotenberg, who CEO and co founder at Dashboard Legal. And it was announced this morning, by the time we get this thing published, that Bloomberg has acquired Dashboard Legal and order to expand Bloomberg reach within the legal workflow market. So Joe and Mathew, we appreciate you guys jumping on the call with us today to talk more about what this means for the two of you and for the legal industry.

Joe Breda 0:50
I wouldn’t rather be anywhere else. Thanks.

Marlene Gebauer 0:55
Well, Joe, with the acquisition of Dashboard Legal Bloomberg laws clearly aiming to enhance its suite of workflow tools for the legal industry. Would you describe how you envision Dashboard Legal’s Project management and collaboration features, integrating with Bloomberg laws, existing tools, such as AI powered contract solutions?

Joe Breda 1:16
So that’s an excellent question. I do want to make sure we allow Mat to explain for your audience a little bit, exactly what Dashboard Legal does. And then you know how we’re going to fold those into the ecosystem will make a lot more sense. But I will tell you that, you know, we started as a research platform, we definitely have ambitions to extend into attorneys workflows, we launched Bloomberg Law contract solutions. Last summer, and this is the next step towards fulfilling that vision. If you wouldn’t mind. I’d like Mat, to talk a little bit about Dashboard Legal and what it does for his customers and our customers.

Mathew Rotenberg 2:01
Sure. Yeah, happy to start there. So um, you know, Dashboard Legal was was really born from a pain, I experienced seven years practicing big law on New York City. And it’s really just about how lawyers are getting organized and collaborating. And if you look at the time, lawyers spend on process, just getting things from A to Z without things slipping through the cracks. It’s a vast majority of their time, and they’re doing these project management processes in their inbox. So the goal of Dashboard Legal from the beginning, now we’ve had a number of iterations. But the thesis has always been the same. How do we smooth out the project management matter management components that are required to practice law to be an effective attorney? That’s, that’s really what we’ve been delivering up till now, both with our kind of associate workflow, persona, and then more recently to partners and general counsel’s, but where I think the overlap really appeared. And I’ll obviously let Joe speak to this, too, was that our customers, lawyers, were identifying their biggest pain points around project management. They didn’t necessarily use that term, but they’re talking about just managing the increased complexity and volume of information that they’re responsible for, and that they need help. Now that doesn’t take away from their work with with document drafting, and, you know, all kinds of other mature categories in eDiscovery, and burgeoning ones like AI. But the really, I think the pain point is that 80% of the time they’re spending during their day, just trying to manage all the moving pieces.

Marlene Gebauer 3:48
Yeah, I’ve I’ve basically heard this too. But it’s, it’s just so hard to keep up with things, and sort of have one space where they can sort of see where everything is happening.

Greg Lambert 4:00
And I’ve seen their their Outlook folder structure. So I understand what you mean, by using Outlook to manage the projects. Yeah,

Mathew Rotenberg 4:10
it’s one tool. You know, lawyers are using one tool for so many different types of needs. And at the end of the day, the inbox is just one electronic filing cabinet of other people’s priorities. And people engage in this in this daily routine of dragging and dropping and lessly searching. And we’re trying to really alleviate that pain point and bring them some visualizations, some clear understanding of where their projects stand, who’s doing what, and do so in a way that it feels natural, feels modern and really slots nicely into their existing workflow. Yeah, yeah.

Joe Breda 4:46
I mean, and so, you know, we came to the same conclusion. You know, researching the market is just such a gap in just tooling for collaboration, and managing where for lawyers, you know, partners and GCS tell us is difficult for me to understand like exactly what the state of of different assignments, where they are in the process who’s who’s got what, what stock. And by using this tool, it really provides a lot of visibility. So I think that’s where Mat is going with, you know, young attorneys who start out from school totally get this like it’s they expect to have some kind of ecosystem to work in. At but getting the partners and more senior attorneys and supervising attorneys who really see the value of being able to understand what’s going on in these growing teams is is a really big part of the value proposition where where this kind of joins up with with a broader vision for us is, you know, and I was, Greg and I were talking a week or so ago, or maybe three weeks by now down and down his place. And, you know, we have a lot of really cool content and functionality in Bloomberg Law, that even attorneys who haven’t don’t know about it, because you have to go that extra step of knowing about the tool, knowing how to use it, logging in, what’s my password, in an ideal world, that stuff would just kind of flow in, as you’re working. And, you know, we started Bloomberg Law, we first launched a web product in 2009. So we’re kids compared to some of the other competitors. And so for us, the the change curve has always been, you know, part part of our fundamental challenge, I think we’ve done really well, we had to really bring differentiated products to market and get people to stop what they’re doing for a second and take a look at other, you know, other tools outside what they might have learned in law school. And I think cracking that code, a lot of it is finally bringing the content and the promise of AI into the workflow that the attorney is actually using. And so that’s why we’re so excited about this. And that’s, that’s the mission where we’re about to embark on together.

Greg Lambert 7:21
Yeah, oh, man, you know, take taking the two companies and putting them together. Now, how do you how do you see the new offering kind of shaping the way that you know, the future of legal workflow management? And what what is it about the Bloomberg content in the platform that you think will add to the current product?

Mathew Rotenberg 7:42
Sure. So I think Dashboard Legal today is is the structure by which legal work is getting done, it’s a skeleton for it. And there’s other components that need to be in there as well, content is a big part of it. And so I think some of the some of the initial integrations are going to be focused on embedding the the incredible Bloomberg content library into into natural ways within the Dashboard Legal structure. But taking it one step further. AI is changing the way law is being practiced. We all know that that’s happening. And one of the some of the earliest conversations I had with Joe and the other senior leadership team just kind of cemented that, that understanding that we both share. But the key, I think that’s that everyone’s coming to realize about AI is that it has to be it has to be implemented in the right way with the right use case very deliberately. And putting those AI components into a structured workflow with content that’s relevant. And then allowing the AI tool to access summarize, you know, get the information they need, visualize what they need, when they need it, is the opportunity for kind of these three tools to come together for, for the workstation of the future, the legal workstation of the future. That’s the goal. That’s always been the goal. And And honestly, you know, personally, it’s just it’s exciting to, to see such alignment on where we think the practice of law is going, and to have the incredible talent and resources and credibility and leadership that Bloomberg and Joe and his team provide.

Marlene Gebauer 9:26
So want to focus a little bit on on generative AI. So, you know, Dashboard Legal Mat was was developed by attorneys like you and Fedor Garin who recognize the need for like more efficient task tracking and collaboration in law firms. So, you know, how do you plan to leverage this, this this kind of insider perspective to drive further innovation at Bloomberg Law, especially considering the role of generative AI and other advancing technologies in the legal sector?

Mathew Rotenberg 10:02
Yeah, um, you know, I think, I think we were and we’re in alignment with Joe on this, too, that the, the needs of a lawyer are still going to stay the same, which is they need to be the trusted adviser, they need to provide counsel, and, you know, and assurances and credibility to the most important aspects of businesses in people’s lives. And the way the smoothing out of that processes is really the opportunity. So the skeletal structure the content, and talking about AI AI is as good as the content that you feed it. So if we have the workflows that they’re working on, you know, you’re working on a litigation, you’re working on a big transaction, and it’s in it’s in a workspace, it’s condensed into a workspace, you can do an incredible amount of sophisticated things to manipulate and surface that data. So that’s kind of the thesis is that it’s going into, it’s going into a certain workspace, and then we can leverage AI to, to do a whole number of things, you know, draft, summarize pulling information, collaborate, automatically create tasks automatically communicate with people, all of that just more fluid workflow that really helps alleviate the complexity and volume problems that we’re hearing.

Joe Breda 11:22
Yeah, let me give you just a concrete example. Imagine you set up a dashboard, or basically a workspace for a transaction, you know, consider it to it’s a deal room type thing, it becomes a deal room, right? So you have collaborators that you add there, you have task lists that are assigned to various people. And then you have documents, drafts of things, you know, attend, exhibits, things like that. So now you have this little kind of constrained library, this is everything about this thing that you’re working on. A lot of times, what you’ll want is I need an answer out of something in this pile. So I want to know, what are the closing conditions? I want to know like compare these two versions and tell me what changed. If I have a space setup for litigation, and I have some drafts in there, I might want to say check this thing for compliance with local court rules. And those are all the types of things that you can do with generative AI and a workflow like Dashboard Legal. It’s like hyper context sensitive AI, like right when you need it. And, you know, we individually, Marlene and Greg, we’ve talked about this, kind of off to the side in various conversations, one of the big challenges for law firms to really take full advantage of generative AI is they have to figure out a way to use it, but still retain control of really important client data and be assured that, that it’s not going anywhere. And as much as we’d like to say, look, we’re Bloomberg, you should definitely trust us with it. And I think you should, there’s still a lot of discomfort around moving my files from point A to point B and losing losing kind of control of it. The way Mat and his team have integrated, I manage and net docs into the Dashboard Legal so that they’re, they’re not really copies. They’re just kind of like a virtual reference to where the documents continue to live safe and sound in the law firms infrastructure, we think operating through that paradigm will allow us to bring generative AI to client workflow in a way that we haven’t seen in a lot of places.

Greg Lambert 13:55
In Joe, just to build on that with the clients. Do you see this acquisition as an ability for you to kind of expand your reach into maybe the small to mid sized law firms as well who may not have a huge, you know, it or Ay, ay? Ay? Yeah, way to manage projects like this, like the big law firms do. 100%.

Joe Breda 14:21
I mean, I think, you know, if you’re a sole practitioner, where you probably don’t need a collaboration tool to work with yourself, you might but you know, email might work for you. But small law firms, you know, face the same challenges as big law firms, in a lot of cases without without the support, right without the IT departments as you stated, and having a platform that, that doesn’t need to be configured to the nth degree to make sense, right out of the box, I think is really powerful. So we see opportunity at big law A mid size firms, but also in house legal departments that are continuing to grow and take on more work in house. And they are really acutely feeling the pain of managing all the all the tasks that are in flight.

Mathew Rotenberg 15:15
Yeah. And just to add on add to that point, I think that the CLM products that have gone to market have proven themselves to be valuable in a certain way. But just too much, in a lot of other ways. too costly, a lot of people were being priced out of the market, if the implementation just takes way too long, and it’s too expensive. And so for the in house teams looking for something just lighter, and to actually address the day to day workflow, Dashboard Legal. Power BI Power BI Bloomberg, I think is a really nice solution that is accessible. And, you know, that’s our goal. And the whole the whole, the whole ethos of Dashboard Legal. And what Joe is caught onto is just making something pleasant making it elegant, simple. And that’s that’s hard to do. But lawyers deserve it. And that’s why we’re building a tailor tool to facilitate legal work.

Joe Breda 16:15
Yeah. Yeah, we’d love to give you a demo, if you haven’t seen it at some point, but it has the kind of ease of use that you expect from like a consumer level product, it makes sense. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist, and you don’t need an IT staff to use it.

Marlene Gebauer 16:36
Dashboard Legal powered by Bloomberg, I like the sound of that.

Joe Breda 16:39
Yeah, we do too.

Marlene Gebauer 16:44
So, so Mathew, the feedback from existing Dashboard Legal clients, like Naveen Pai at Gunderson Dettmer seem to be pretty positive on this acquisition. I’m wondering now that Dashboard Legal is part of the Bloomberg Law platform, you know, have you heard from other clients? You know, are they also feeling positive? Have they given any feedback about how to further you know, enhance the platform’s capabilities, you know, just sort of meet their needs?

Mathew Rotenberg 17:12
Yeah, well, we haven’t, we haven’t publicized it yet. So just just a few customers are aware of what’s going on. But you know, I think I’ll now take the bag out of the bag today, yeah, it is now. But, you know, for our existing customers, nothing, nothing is gonna immediately change, I mean, the product is still going to work the same way, they’re gonna get the same level of service from me and our team. And then what we’re able to do with Bloomberg is, is really a tremendous opportunity, which is to expand the offering to include items on our roadmap that were way far out. And now we have the resources and talent to to deliver those things. And we’ve been getting feedback for years. That’s, that’s what’s led to the success of this is just iterating quickly. And I think that the combined forces will allow us to really deliver the highest quality, legal workflow tool on the market. Yeah,

Joe Breda 18:07
I mean, if I think it’s important to, to understand the way we think about how Dashboard Legal fits in and how you know how important it is to our overall strategy. I really see this as, as the hub of a bunch of connected workflows. So it’s a hub that has spokes to research and content. It has, it’s a hub that has connections to drafting tools, you can imagine a future suite of products, legal spend management, litigation hold these things that all connect and are kind of centered around a matter but but are integrated in a way so you can go from one to another right? So if there’s a there’s a matter of litigation matter in house counsel was dealing with in Dashboard Legal, they can initiate a litigation hold and track it from within that software. So you know, to create too great, a whole modular system that talks to each other something that we don’t really think exists in the market right now.

Marlene Gebauer 19:08
Yeah, like the way you describe that it’s very, very visual. Like I can see it the way you’re explaining it. Joe, are Mathew, is there anything that we missed that you’d like to share with the audience? Before we we say goodbye?

Joe Breda 19:21
Well, let me just say, and then I’ll give Mat a turn. A huge part of this deal is having Mat unfettered join the team. They are sometimes with acquisitions, you know, the founders will stay on as consultants for a limited amount of time. That’s not the case here. They were really part of the value of of Dashboard Legal and a big driver of the acquisition. So Mat’s going to be joining the be law senior leadership team. We’re going to be working very closely together. He’s going to start out of course with his with his primary focus on Dashboard Legal and we have plenty of work to do. But you know, we’re going to use his talents, too, as we really kind of expand into this, you know, workflow enabled by AI and content, this overall strategy. So I’m super excited to start working with them. And and Federer is a fantastic engineer, he’s going to, he’s already accepted a position with Bloomberg engineering in New York, going to be an incredibly valuable asset as well.

Mathew Rotenberg 20:30
Yeah, thanks, Joe. And appreciate, you know, the the vote of faith here. And, you know, what appeared early on was just the alignment and excitement about the same vision we have for changing the way and improving the way lawyers work. And I think those conversations went were everything in terms of our excitement about the deal, and really pushing it through. So I this is the opportunity of a lifetime. I’m excited to deliver on the promise of Dashboard Legal. And I’m 100% confident that Bloomberg gives us the best shot to do that. Yeah,

Joe Breda 21:06
for sure. Just to give you a little bit of flavor. There’s a long text thread between Mat and I going back months, oh, we could do this. And then we could do this. And so we have we’re fully loaded. We’re ready to go. Again,

Greg Lambert 21:19
it sounds like there’s a lot of excitement going on on both those parties here. So, Joe Breda and Mat Rotenberg guys want to thank both of you for coming on and sharing the new news of the acquisition of Dashboard Legal by Bloomberg Law. Thank you both.

Mathew Rotenberg 21:35
Thanks. Yeah.

Joe Breda 21:35
Thanks

Marlene Gebauer 21:36
Yes, congratulations to you both. And thanks to all of you, our listeners for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. We’d love to hear from you. So please find us on social media sites like LinkedIn. We also want to thank Jerry David DeCicca for the wonderful music you hear every episode. Thank you.

Karen and David shared their fascinating backstory, from meeting in law school to their adventures in Budapest, Hungary, and beyond. These experiences not only enriched their personal lives but also shaped their professional paths, leading to the inception of Gimbal Consulting. Their work focuses on adapting Lean and Lean Six Sigma methodologies to the legal profession, aiming to streamline lawyers’ practices for increased productivity and profitability.

Working together has its unique set of challenges and rewards, as the Skinners highlighted. Their collaboration is built on a deep understanding and mutual respect for each other’s strengths and viewpoints, even when they differ. This synergy has allowed them to navigate their professional endeavors successfully while maintaining a strong personal relationship.

The episode also delves into the practicalities and philosophies that guide Karen and David’s work-life integration. They emphasized the importance of establishing routines that cater to both their professional and personal needs, such as their morning meetings in the hot tub, which blend work planning with relaxation.

For couples considering a similar path, Karen and David offered sage advice: embrace the journey with open hearts and minds, acknowledging that while working with your spouse can be challenging, it can also be incredibly rewarding. Their story is a testament to the power of partnership in both love and legal tech.

Listeners of “The Geek in Review” will find this episode not only inspiring but also filled with practical insights into making a significant impact in the legal tech space while nurturing a fulfilling personal life.

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠

Contact Us: 

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads: @glambertpod or @gebauerm66
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠ and Eve Searls

⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠Transcript

Marlene Gebauer 0:04
Welcome to The Geek in Review the podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal profession. I’m Marlene Gebauer,

Greg Lambert 0:10
And I’m Greg Lambert. So for our love and legal tech feature we have with us today, Karen Dunn Skinner, who’s the co founder and CEO at Gimbal. Karen, welcome to the The Geek in Review.

Karen Dunn Skinner 0:24
Glad to be here.

Greg Lambert 0:25
And we have with her Karen’s partner in crime, David Skinner, who is the co founder and president of Gimbal’s So, David, welcome.

David Skinner 0:36
Thank you very much. Nice to be here,

Greg Lambert 0:38
you’re gonna have a child to introduce.

Karen Dunn Skinner 0:43
This is what happens when you work together. Do you first so now is it alright? And well, that is one of our children, and they have an override. And so we always have to warn them. This is something to remember when you work with your spouse. You have to warn them not to contact you during broadcasts or No,

Marlene Gebauer 0:59
does that actually work? I was gonna say that it does not work for me.

Unknown Speaker 1:03
He’s 26. So you should get it.

Greg Lambert 1:05
Hey, hope hope springs eternal.

Marlene Gebauer 1:07
Yeah. I have a few more years from that. But all right, I just said maybe someday, I can hope. I can hope. Okay. And that’s so so. So Karen, Karen. And David, tell us a little bit about what you do at Gimbal. And maybe kind of what you did before that kind of got you each to Gimbal.

Karen Dunn Skinner 1:28
Oh, okay. So it’s funny, because when we were invited to come on and talk about love and legal tech, my first question was, we don’t really do a legal text specifically. But we use the legal tech all the time and talk to our clients about it all the time,

Marlene Gebauer 1:41
we use the legal tech very loosely, yeah, we’re very loose on this.

Karen Dunn Skinner 1:46
So what we do is we help lawyers build practices that they love, that also gives them time to build lives that they love, we help people to be more productive, being more profitable without working as hard. And we really started the business because we had practice law, both of us for over 20 years, and very large law firms. And I ended up at a solo practice and David in house and did a PhD partway through that. So there’s a lot we’ve been, we’ve been around, we’ve done different things in the legal profession for a long time. And one of the things that we found was, there had to be a better way to do it. Because honestly, we don’t very often meet unhappy ex lawyers. And that tells you a lot about the profession. And so we thought there has to be a better way to do it. So we looked around, we looked at different ways of looking at the practice looking at the delivery of legal services, and we hit on eventually in like 2011 2012, on this idea of, could we adapt lean and Lean Six Sigma to the practice of law. And that’s kind of what brought us in, and we looked at what Seyfarth was doing, we looked at what a Canadian law firm BLG was doing. And we were friends with one of the partners at BLG, who said, this is really working for us. So we started really thinking about how we could adapt that to the practice law. And that’s really what got us to start Gimbal, we did some training, I got a black belt in Lean Six Sigma. And over the years, we’ve just been adapting those strategies and others, but those approaches to streamlining the way that lawyers practice with a real focus on getting people to think about their work differently and think about their value differently. So that they also value their lives. You know, we get sucked in, in law a lot of times and it’s hard to have the life that you want.

Greg Lambert 3:28
David, anything to add to that.

David Skinner 3:31
Not in particular, no, I at its core, our focus is on helping people be as great as the business of laws, they are at the practice of law, most lawyers that you come across are really good at what they do. And they genuinely enjoy what they do. But the common refrain is almost always just way too busy to get the mission critical things that I need to get done in a regular day. So I sacrifice my evenings with my family, I sacrifice holiday weekends away, I sacrifice the kid’s ballet, and our soccer events. And that’s just not the way it has to be. It really doesn’t. And our focus is on helping people realize that through a clearer focus, and a clear plan towards efficiency and effectiveness, they can be more productive, they can be more profitable. And the end result of that is they end up with a huge amount more time to focus on the things that really matter whether Greg that happens to be getting more of mission critical legal work done or getting out of dodge and spending time business developing or spending time with your community, your church, whatever it happens to be family. And that’s the sort of lack of balance that or integration that people tend to have in the practice. It’s sort of all in nothing leftover. And I think that’s really unfortunate. So our mission really is to help people be as great at the business of law as they are at the practice of law and to have the time and freedom to enjoy their success doing other things that they love.

Greg Lambert 5:01
So Karen, I wanted to ask you about the black belt in, in six sigma. How many boards? Do you have to break?

Karen Dunn Skinner 5:10
I know break boards. I make a lot of boards. I make a lot of

Greg Lambert 5:13
posts. Do you have to put on that board?

Karen Dunn Skinner 5:15
Oh, my God. So we were, we have posted notes everywhere. And we were just at we were just on site with a client in, in Atlanta up there. Yeah, we were on site with a client in Atlanta all last week, doing a huge process improvement project with their legal team and their commercial team and some sales folks and finance folks, really looking at their whole customer contracting process. And we use so many post-it notes and one guy walked into the room. And he’s like, I think the consulting business has maintained 3M and the posted business entirely for the last decade. And then he walked out again. And

David Skinner 5:49
our response to that was we wish he’d invested in 3M long time ago, because we could retire by now, right? We use a lot of post it notes. Someone else looked at the wall and said, Oh, this is totally overwhelming. There’s too many colors. I’m leaving.

Karen Dunn Skinner 6:02
Yeah, we liked those notes. There.

David Skinner 6:03
I’m keeping notes right now on a post it note there.

Greg Lambert 6:06
Well done. So you guys have done a really good job of pulling the company together. Do you mind? Let’s back up a little bit more. How did the two of you meet? And then? Did you guys work together before? Or is this kind of the first time that you’ve done a joint operation?

Karen Dunn Skinner 6:25
We’ve got a long story.

David Skinner 6:27
So the long story short is we met in law school. I was in my third year and Karen was an L one or freshman in law school

Karen Dunn Skinner 6:35
and you gave away the last hot dog at the barbecue.

David Skinner 6:37
I did I gave it

Greg Lambert 6:38
That seems to be sticking point still.

David Skinner 6:41
Hey, it is a little bit I gave the last hot dog away to one of our professors, Steven Perry. Yeah. And and Karen sort of didn’t forgive me for that. But the interesting thing is that Karen’s parents lived about a couple of miles downriver from very, very close family friends of, of my families. And for them, it’s a cottage for Karen’s family. It’s their principal residence. And they knew that Karen was coming to Montreal, and they’d been asked to sort of look out for her because she might need a room. When she first got to that shell finding it apart was a bit of a challenge. And the goofy thing is that years prior, when I was my last year of high school, I lived with those family friends of ours in the same house in the same room that Karen would have occupied had she not found an apartment. And they asked me to keep an eye out for her. So up shows this pretty young woman looking for, you know, food at the at the Dean’s barbecue barbecue reception, and you didn’t give it to her. And I did not give her I did not give it to her. But we became friends. And we started to see each other in January of that year. So we’ve actually been together for 33.

Karen Dunn Skinner 7:53
It’s January 1990, 1990. So

Greg Lambert 7:56
34 years. Very, very nice

David Skinner 7:59
to have that. And, yeah, so we met in law school. And then to answer your question, Greg, yeah, together. We did actually. I was working I was doing, I was a young attorney with Stikeman Elliott, which is large, what we call seven sister firm here in Canada. And I was working in their corporate commercial department, there was an opportunity for me to go overseas, we were already married. And I went overseas, ostensibly for a six week sort of helped them out. And as I left, I looked at Karen, I said, Look, pack your bags, because I’m not coming home. I’d already lived overseas. I’d lived in the States for four years and lived in Asia for a year. And I really longed to go back overseas and have that experience again. And so I packed my bags and headed off to Budapest, Hungary, ostensibly for six weeks, but with a plan. My plan was to make myself indispensable, and see if I could be offered a longer stay.

Karen Dunn Skinner 8:50
Yeah, yeah. And so after those six weeks that the managing partner of the Budapest office called and said, Karen, you want a job, and I said, Well, yeah, sure. But I have this articling position with you know, Blakey, and he’s like, I’ve already handled it. So. So I moved to Stikeman, and packed up two cats, two bicycles, and a goalie bag full of stuff, and moved to Hungary for what was supposed to be another sort of three months or something. But we had no intention of going back. And we ended up living in Budapest for two years and working together at Stikeman for those two years, and then we moved from there to England. And there was incredible reaction. So

Greg Lambert 9:29
action in Hungary.

Karen Dunn Skinner 9:31
Oh, no, not existed, but it was just the fact that we could find going back so huge.

David Skinner 9:37
So so we spent we spent two absolutely fabulously years living and working in Central and Eastern Europe. Oh, crazy work headquartered out of Budapest, but we spend time in Slovenia, Slovakia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Baku, Azerbaijan, Baku, Azerbaijan, it was an amazing experience as two young attorneys who are already married, no kids. We had an incredible time. And we’re very thankful to Stikeman Elliott for that experience. And then Karen started a PhD in London at the London School of Economics. And I moved to the Stikeman Elliott office in London. And after a couple of years quite legitimately said, David, you’ve been with us for X period of time. And if you want to be a partner, you need to go back to your domestic office of origin. And, and sort of, you know, walk the walk. And in my mind, at that time, they were asking me to return to my domestic office of origin, which was Montreal, and we had just come through another referendum on separation, and the economy was in a bit of a pickle place, society was in a bit of a difficult place. We look to each other in London, on my brother lived in London, my sister lived in London, and we did and our son had been born in London, and I changed I left I thanks stipend very much and I’m a huge fan of cyclin Elliot, but I went and worked for Freshfields, Bruckhaus Deringer for a couple of years in private m&a, private Equity, that gave me a taste for private Equity type work. And then I went and joined a venture capital company in the heady days of the.com bubble. And I spent several years there became a.com millionaire. And it was all in paper. And it all evaporated, all while Karen is, is doing her PhD. And then we came back to Canada. And then I started work as vice president, General Counsel and corporate secretary of a publicly traded biopharmaceutical company. And I did that for almost a decade. And I was very passionate about my work doing that, because my mother, my mother, suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. So it was fabulous. It was a great experience. And then in

Greg Lambert 11:33
carrying it, what was your What was your PhD in?

Karen Dunn Skinner 11:36
So my PhD was in corporate governance, and I was, I was looking at the development of corporate governance structures in the recently privatized electricity industry in Eastern Europe. So what we had done with Stikeman was the privatization of the electricity industry, among other things. And I was heavily involved with the regular development of the regulatory framework for the industry. And then with the tendering and the process of selling all those companies. And I watched what happened to those companies as different purchasers moved in. So there were French companies and German companies and non American company, they all have very different corporate governance structures. And the Hungarian structure was malleable enough that it worked. And so that’s what I was doing my research. And I sadly, never finished my PhD because when we go back to Canada, I started a small practice working with some of my contacts from Europe. And I ended up just papering all these really amazing transactions from all over Europe. And I was essentially a legal process and sorcerer. So I would do all of the paperwork for different mergers and acquisitions, and you know, large purchases of television, Moto G, do you dare TV? Yeah, directly from TV. And it was great work. And I loved it. So I kind of built that up as a solo practice. And then, actually some the way we decided it was kind of unnecessary. And then at some point, we decided, you know, David was moving away from his general counsel position, I was ready to do something else. And we realized at that point that, you know, there had to be a different way to practice. So that’s that. And that kind of brings us right back to, to where we started with.

Marlene Gebauer 13:09
Is that sort of that was the impetus for Gimbal, then yeah, exactly

David Skinner 13:12
It was. That sense that I was moving away from my general counsel practice, Karen was moving away from her solo, international corporate finance advisory practice, because we both felt that there needs to be a different way to practice law. And we thought that we could be advocates for and instrumental in bringing in a new approach, which is really a sort of a focus on overall organizational and operational efficiency with a focus on value. giving priority to value over what otherwise in a bill by the hour frame is often filled with inefficiency and waste. And we spend our time today working with high performing teams, helping them go even higher, because there is it no matter how efficient we think we are, there’s always a better way of doing things. And our full focus is really on that sort of incremental improvement. A little bit of I’m done with the deal. What did I do? How did I do it? What could I do better or differently, that would make it easier for me with higher value for the client. And and if that’s clear, let’s follow that path and make little changes every day, every week, every month, and see that our practice grows in a way that does afford us the time to be both successful and have the time to enjoy that success. Which is sort of illusory for many people. Yeah.

Marlene Gebauer 14:33
So you guys have worked together for a long time. Like this isn’t a new thing for you. It’s like you’ve worked together for years and in different related but different professions. So what’s been the best thing about being in the same profession for for both of you and Karen, I’ll start with you. Yeah.

Karen Dunn Skinner 14:54
So one of the things that we saw really clearly when we were working in Hungary and Italy Hungary we were working, we were working really crazy hours, we had fabulous work and a great team. But we were sometimes in the office 36 hours at a time. And

David Skinner 15:07
Our worst was actually 52

Karen Dunn Skinner 15:09
Yeah, and, you know, sleeping and eating, we had caught some sleeping bags. And, and, and then even later when, when we were back in London and I was doing my PhD, you can tell your story and, and, you know, David was at at Freshfields or at Stikeman, he was never home even though we have kid he was never home till like 10 or 11 o’clock at night.

David Skinner 15:27
In fact, we used to, we used to eat dinner, almost every day of the week, are certainly weekdays weeknights at 10pm. And I know that because Trevor McDonald came onto the channel for independent news. And we’d eat dinner in front of the TV, watching the news.

Karen Dunn Skinner 15:45
And and so one of the things that we saw with doing that is we saw what happened to a lot of other people’s relationships. And I think one of the best things for us, I mean, apart from the fact that working together gave us the opportunity to live in Europe and all that. It’s much easier to accept when your partner says I can’t come home, I’ve got to get this work done for a client night after night after night. It’s just easier if you understand that, that that’s really what’s happening. And you know, the pressures and you understand how it works and the pressure to make partner or the pressure to deliver for clients. And I think it was harder for our friends, where only one person was doing that kind of work, and the other person was doing something else. But there was disappointment.

David Skinner 16:25
And there were suspicions, right, it’s way too easy to kind of if you’re not super comfortable in your relationship, there’s always that question. Wait, is she really at the office? And that was it when we she knew Karen knew exactly where I was and exactly what I was doing, because we live the experience.

Karen Dunn Skinner 16:43
Yeah, so I think that’s that’s really, I think that under mutual understanding of, of what it’s like to practice is one of the best things,

David Skinner 16:52
empathy and support. Yeah,

Marlene Gebauer 16:54
I think that’s key, the empathy and support. Yeah,

Karen Dunn Skinner 16:57
the empathy support. Plus, it did really give us the opportunity to do a lot of things together.

David Skinner 17:01
You don’t even today, I mean, because because, as you said, Marlene, it’s been a long time that we’ve worked together. But since founding Gimbal, what, 12 years ago, 12 years ago, we’ve done a tremendous amount of travel, particularly pre pandemic, yeah, 95 98% of our clients were in the US. And we were constantly traveling, because there were large consulting engagement. And we would travel down for meetings, and we’d be there for 234 days. And then we back because we have a family. So we would have to come home and spend time with our family on weekends. And that was very important to us. But we got to travel all over the place. And I, again, funny stories, but I think it’s challenging traveling on your own. When you’re away from your family, you don’t have the support, you don’t have someone to talk to him back in the day, you would have spoken by phone, or it would have cost you hundreds and hundreds of dollars for telephone call long distance. Now it’s easy on FaceTime, like, but still, I think traveling alone can be very lonely. And when we traveled together, we sit in restaurants with other business people. And we look around and we see how many people are sitting alone. Now the flip side is because we’re together 24 hours a day, we go to a restaurant for dinner, we sit down and we look at the menu, we ordered dinner, and then immediately both our business. And we spend all our time our business,

Karen Dunn Skinner 18:18
but we usually do we spend all

David Skinner 18:20
of our time staring at our phones. And we’re confident that everybody around us, including the waiters think we are the worst boring couple ever, that we’re pathetic. And it’s only when we explain to the waiter at oat wash. So everybody around can kind of hear, we’re married, we work together. And we’ve been up working together since five o’clock in the morning. And this is our first chance to catch up with some private time. So that’s why we sit opposite each other at dinner when we’re away. We don’t actually actually talk, but we go up for walks in the evening, we get to explore all sorts of places.

Karen Dunn Skinner 18:54
We don’t do it alone.

David Skinner 18:55
Exactly.

Greg Lambert 18:57
Well, I mean, other than embedding and air tag on each other so that you know exactly where you are. It has there been any other like, challenges that you run into working in the same profession, and especially working in the same business?

Karen Dunn Skinner 19:16
Well, there are always challenges when you work with your spouse, especially when we were doing a lot of traveling COVID was a blessing in a way because we were I mean, that sounds awful to say I don’t know what you mean that way, but it was it was there was silver lining, which is that we really develop the remote friends of every project everything that we do, because when we were traveling, we have two children, they’re 10 years apart. And so we have little one still at home when we were doing a lot of that traveling, and that made it hard. And so when you’re both in the same profession, you don’t have that person. You don’t have anybody to be the backup at home when you’re both really busy, or when you’re both really stressed and that’s another part of it. If things are if you’re working really hard on something or if you’re if you’re you know in the juice and you just got a ton of stuff to do more things are not going smoothly. When you’re both in it together, you don’t have any sort of downtime. And you don’t have that downtime at home. Because you’re always thinking about it in your partners. They’re like you mentioned Greg at dinner, are you talking business, it’s really hard to turn off. Right? It’s, it’s, we make a conscious effort to do things with our kids, and to spend time on things that we love and our own hobbies and things. But it’s hard to turn off when you’re with your partner and your business partner and thinking about work.

Greg Lambert 20:31
Have there been things that you learned during the pandemic, or at least during the lockdown that you’ve been able to continue? As travel restrictions have

David Skinner 20:41
One Hundred Percent. We pivoted our business massively, we used to be, again, 95%, in person, everything we did, whether we were teaching a course, or it didn’t matter, we were in person. And the pandemic taught us and everybody else that you don’t have to be in person, you can still be if you’re creative, you can still be very effective. And we took all of our courses that we taught live in person, and we recorded them. Yeah, so we have a compendium of different courses that are available online, asynchronously, so you can sign up and watch it when you want to. And the great thing is you can listen to us talk at double speed, we sound better like chipmunks than we do in this fashion. So we pivoted in a sense that we took all of our course content, and brought it online.

Karen Dunn Skinner 21:33
We also what we also did is really developed the coaching part of our business, so that it allowed us to do a lot more one on one, we now have a group coaching program called practice accelerator, where we have two different cohorts, a Tuesday group and a Thursday group. And so we built out, and then we also have one to one coaching. And again, we’ve built that out. And because we’ve been able to do what we do remotely using some good technology, so we use Zoom, we use Mira, we can do all kinds of process mapping, and process improvement in streamlining using our remote tools. And that’s been great, because it’s actually opened us up to a market that we really enjoy working in, which is the smaller firms. We’ve done a lot with like amla, 100, firms in the Seven Sisters in Canada, and, and, and that’s great. But working with the smaller firms and the solos, it has been a real eye opener there, they feel the pain more immediately, it’s much easier to make changes, because you’re only having to change the minds of a couple of people. It’s much easier, as I like to say to turn the canoe than it is to turn the Titanic. So it’s, it’s, it’s been great. And I think if it hadn’t been for the pandemic, we probably wouldn’t have built out that part of our practice.

David Skinner 22:47
Well, you say seal the pain, they feel the pain more immediately, but they also feel the benefit more immediately. And that’s partly because turning a canoe is faster than turning the Titanic. It’s hugely rewarding. We build up this great relationship we get deep into the business of our of our clients. And someone more than one person refers to us as the regular therapy session, because it’s not just talking about the business of law, it’s talking about what motivates them in life, where are they trying to get to? Right? What’s the destination? What journey are they on, when they understand where their life where they want their life to be in, say, three to five years, we’re not huge advocates and saying 10 to 15 years because in 2024, the world changes, autonomy changes, circumstances change faster than ever before. So we pull back from a strategic perspective and just say, Listen, Greg, Marlene, where do you want to be in three to five years time, when you understand where you want to be personally in your relationship with your kids, your family, your community? Then you can start to say, well, then what does what do I have to accomplish my business to enable me to achieve the goals I have in my personal life? And we really enjoy that dialogue with our clients. So

Marlene Gebauer 24:03
I mean, you guys have similar last name. So maybe people figure this out. And you do work in the in the, in the same in the same company. But do you have situations where, you know, you’re meeting people for the first time and you know, maybe they don’t make the connection? You know, what kind of what kind of reaction do you get when when you tell others you know, you work in the same company with Karen

Karen Dunn Skinner 24:24
really funny they a lot of people don’t and then there’ll be kind of halfway through a workshop with us or they’ll be you know, we’ll be like on day two of a week long process and bourbon engagement, happy like, wait a minute, like, married to each other?

Marlene Gebauer 24:41
to each other.

Karen Dunn Skinner 24:43
And, and it’s funny, a lot of people call us the Gimbals. Once we find that out, or they or they do realize that we’re we’re a couple and then they’re like, yeah, we’ll bring in the Gimbals that we’re gonna get the Gimbals to help us

Marlene Gebauer 24:54
not become your company and your last name. So

Karen Dunn Skinner 24:58
it’s funny and it’s It’s entertaining. But you know, it’s fine. We, we, we are happy with the decisions that we’ve made about building the business and about working together. And it’s given us a lot of freedom to, you know, we work like crazy, because, you know, when you’re entrepreneurs, you work hard, but it’s given us a lot of freedom to and I wouldn’t change it, it’s, you know, it’s not always easy to, to work with your spouse, because like they would mentioned, you work together all the time. And it’s hard to turn off. And it’s hard to, to, you know, not talk about work when you’re sitting there with your kids. And it’s hard to, to kind of get time away. But on the other hand, it’s given us a lot of freedom, we really are able to resolve a lot of issues, because we’ve had 34 years of resolving issues and, you know, getting over disagreements and so nothing really sticks. I think it’s alleviated a lot of some of the politics that I’ve experienced in other offices that I just don’t want to deal with and don’t have to deal with because they just don’t have to, because I’m with my partner.

David Skinner 26:07
And we know each other incredibly well. Obviously, we’ve been together for 3334, almost 35 years. A some people find it off putting, because we’ll be up, walking around a room, talking, engaging, teaching, and will interrupt each other. He’s other we’re interrupting each other, it’s that we’re completing each other’s thoughts, because we’ve done it so often. And we know what each other things, often we both open our mouths, and we say the exact same thing completely unprompted. It’s kind of goofy. It’s a little it can be off, putting the interruptions can can seem off putting, but it’s just two people who know each other better than anybody else. And we seamlessly engage. It’s kind of fun. It’s actually really fun.

Greg Lambert 26:52
I imagine this probably difficult, David, because I could see when you interrupt Karen, that somebody could think, Oh, somebody’s mansplaining this

David Skinner 27:00
Oh my gosh, Greg. We’ve had that a number of times I kid you not. We’ve had that a number of times. We’ve actually had comments in a presentation, whether it was a a webinar, or it was a course, sometimes we have tightly scripted, what we’re going to say, we’ve got great slides, but we’ve tightly scripted what we want to say, because we’ve got a mission. We’re trying to accomplish something we’ve got a tight timetable. So we will script it out, including interruptions. But

Karen Dunn Skinner 27:35
that not really interruptions. No, I’m interrupting him again. That way. They’re their breaks, because you know, it can get boring when you’re listening to one person learn blah, blah, blah. So we break the text up,

Marlene Gebauer 27:46
you take a pause, have a little chat. Go back. Yeah, yeah.

Karen Dunn Skinner 27:50
But people interpreted that breaking up of the text and switching speakers to interruptions. And using learning lesson for us

David Skinner 27:57
what is into that point, it’s not even necessarily taking a pause and sort of chit chatting. It’s, if we’re trying to make a point. And we’re high speed, we’ll switch speakers. And I’ll start a sentence. And then in the script, there’s an ellipse dot, dot dot, and Karen knows that search you to jump right in and leave no gap. So it sounds like she’s interrupting me. And we’ve been called out on it. People say we don’t like, you know, David sounds like he’s interrupting Karen. What they don’t realize is it’s tightly scripted. Yeah. And it’s the goal is to keep it dynamic, and interactive, and change it up constantly. Because there’s nothing worse than listening to one talking head at the funnel.

Marlene Gebauer 28:38
Now we know now everybody knows, okay. Well, we

Karen Dunn Skinner 28:41
do it differently now, though, because right? What What would we do we get feedback. And we make incremental improvements, because we’re process improvement people. So now we have met, we have slides where we do many more slides, where we have much shorter content. And we frequently just switch speakers when we switch slides. And that avoids that problem. So so we got to process the permanent actions.

Greg Lambert 29:05
How do you guys and I imagine this involves, again, some more sticky notes on on the wall, but you know, as things change, or your you need to, you got a new situation that you may not both come to an immediate agreement on? How do you handle a situation where you need to do something and you may not be on the same page? How do you how do you guys work that out?

Karen Dunn Skinner 29:32
Well, we’re actually in the middle of a renovation right now. So let me tell you about not being on the same page. See that? So you know, but we have a house and that house is gonna get renovated, and we’re gonna compromise. I mean, you go ahead because you were gonna say something.

David Skinner 29:51
Well, I was yes, I was to take a slightly different direction. That is to say that we actually find the difference of opinion as a string. If we’re present into clients, whether it’s in a zoom call coaching call, and it’s people that we don’t know terribly well, we’re pretty quick out of the gate to say, You know what, this is what it’s like working with us, you may think we’re interrupting each other. And sometimes we do, sometimes you fill in each other’s words. And also note, we will not always agree. So someone who asked a question, I’ll say, I’d like to go first. Now, I’m gonna give you my thoughts, but I’m pretty confident Karen’s gonna say something very different. You can put it in the brain and scramble around and decide what you think is right. But after 34 years together, we do not agree on everything. And that’s actually a strength. And people are like, Okay, go with it. So it happens. We don’t agree. I’ll say something standing up in a roomful of 40 people, I’ll say, ABC, and Karen will say, You know what? I disagree. And here’s why. And that’s okay. Because then we can engage each other in a conversation with the client with the clients, and they get the benefit of two different views, sometimes three or four, because we’re lawyers, and every lawyer has multiple positions on any one given point. Yeah. And that’s okay. And people accept it. And they and they move on. I don’t think we’ve ever had like a major disagreement in a professional context, or

Karen Dunn Skinner 31:12
anything, or really anything we don’t fight.

Greg Lambert 31:16
That’s good.

Marlene Gebauer 31:17
That is good. So you guys, you’ve guys have touched a little bit about about like, how you guys do your your work life integration. I’m wondering if you have like best practices in that regard, that that you guys actually do to kind of keep that, that integration balanced?

Karen Dunn Skinner 31:40
So yeah, we do we have some routines that are a combination of sort of work and life. The first is that we have a morning meeting every single morning. And in that morning meeting, we do a couple of things. We talk about what’s coming up for the day. And that includes what’s coming up for the day, in our personal life, do we have to shop, whatever we need to do, you know, whatever. And it also includes, you know, what’s on the calendar, what do we have to prep for all of that. But we actually do that with really, really nice cappuccinos that we make in our with our lovely machine, and we do it in our hot tub. So we have our daily meeting every day in the hot tub. So that’s, it’s kind of it’s very relaxing. It’s very personal to just the two of us. And we talk a little bit about work. And we talk a little bit about life. So that’s one way that we do it. It’s an important ritual. Yeah. And we also do other things together and apart like I do watercolor painting. And so that’s kind of my thing. And I do my paintings, and I’m very, it makes me very zen and it gets me into the flow. And David does. He works for a rescue unit here in like Claire, in the part of Montreal where we live. And he’s also a ski patroller at Trump law. So when we’re up north skiing, he’s doing his ski patrolling. And then we’ll get together and we’ll see a few runs. And so we skate and we’ve been skiing together since we started dating. And so that’s a big part of our family life. That’s a big part of what our kids do. It’s a big part of what we do together. And it’s totally unrelated to work. So, you know, it’s just a really nice outside activity that we do.

Marlene Gebauer 33:14
Yeah, I have. I’ve gotten to travel a lot. And I have to say it’s, it’s I’ve loved it. We did a family trip there. And it was just great.

Karen Dunn Skinner 33:22
I’m glad you liked everybody out there. Let us know. Yeah, I will do that. David in his red red jacket. You’re welcome to

David Skinner 33:28
see him at Red Jacket. Just not in an official capacity. I

Greg Lambert 33:30
was gonna say no, I

Marlene Gebauer 33:31
don’t want that. No sled dogs No, no need to protect

David Skinner 33:38
them. For some people. It’s the base the highlight of their day. Like thank god, you’re here after and they have fun with little kids. I said, look on the way down the hill, I really want you to put both arms out and go. This is the best one you’re gonna have other than skiing you better than than injuring yourself. But yeah, John’s right. It’s it’s a question of I think having some external passions. Karen’s one of her passions is is painting. And mine is volunteering, working with my community as a first responder either on the ski hill or working in a search and rescue capacity in both in our municipality, but also in the wilderness. That’s our away time from each other.

Greg Lambert 34:17
Well, back to back to Gimbal and LegalTech. With what some exciting things that you guys are working on right now.

Karen Dunn Skinner 34:24
Oh, well.

David Skinner 34:25
Karen is doing a lot with AI

Karen Dunn Skinner 34:27
Yeah, I am. I’m really getting into using AI I’m really getting into learning about how to prompt different systems, how to generate the content that you want through through feeling refining how you prompt it and how you interact with AI. So I’m in looking at it right now from a content generation perspective. And also reading as much as I can on other ways that particularly small firms can use it. I’m really excited. I’m going to be starting while David and I together are going to be starting a reg Killer column. I don’t know if you know Colin, the Sean’s Greg? Oh, yeah, no, yeah. Collins launching a slaw on slow.ca, which is a Canadian legal blogging site, launching an AI page or a certain subset of slaw. And he’s asked a number of people thought leaders in the industry to contribute. So we’re going to be contributing from the perspective of small firms and tools and how they can they can use AI tools to really do what we want them to do, which is be successful without having to work so hard, and streamline their processes. So I’m, I’m very excited to be learning more and more about that, and starting to write about that, although I’d say our first article that we’re putting out, is going to be about FOMO, and avoiding FOMO. And all the things that small firms and solos really need to get in place. First, before they get sucked into the rabbit hole of all the cool things they could do with AI. So they need to get some streamlined processes in place they need to get, you know, they need to upskill their, their their existing staff, they need to get, you know, do a really decent audit of what they’ve already got to figure out what they need. And, and, you know, they need to get their financial house in order, there’s just a few things you need to do before you really get sucked into all the amazing things that you’re going to be able to do with AI you can’t people get, they get, you know, shiny butterflies, and they

David Skinner 36:22
want to I want to pick up on that. Because I think that I think the syndrome is that people don’t make proper use of the tools that they already have. And they will go to these, you know, ABA tech show, or Clio con or whatever it may be. And they’re always some set. Fabulous. I mean, there’s some great stuff for sure. But they sort of go Oh, Wouldn’t it be neat if we could and someone turns around and goes, you know, you can do that in word right now. Like, wait, what? So it’s a question. And particularly when you’re solo or small, firm, and your margins are tight, margins are tight, and you’ve got a limited budget, and you’ve got limited hours in the day to figure stuff out new software, for example, really, you’re gonna get a better bang for your buck, if you just take a step back and go, Okay, we’ve got this suite of tools that we already pay a lot of money for. Yep. What are we not using to its full potential, I mean, we know firms that spent literally millions of dollars on licenses and maintenance contracts. And there may be using those the existing software platforms, they have to 1520 25%, maybe more, I was like,

Karen Dunn Skinner 37:31
exactly, it’s like yourself, there’s just there gonna be a few things in that first article about where to start. And then after that, we’re gonna be looking at how to use different tools for different time and effort saving tasks in particularly for small firms. And so I’m, I’m really excited about that. And then the other thing that I I geek out about all the time, is, there’s a particular platform that we recommend to everybody for flat fee pricing, and it’s called Old fee. And we love the folks that don’t fee and we’re really looking forward to working with them more. And and using that fee as a way to build out flat fee engagements for clients of ours and clients of their so, so we’re very excited about the opportunities there with their software. And I’m sure there are others as well. But they happen to be the one we we know the best. And you know, for small firms, they can make so much more money if they get flat fees. Right. And there’s just a lot of obstacles around that. So we’re going to be, you know, using technology to help them price more effectively. And I think that’s going to have huge value.

David Skinner 38:40
The soft side of all of that are the mindset shifts. Yeah, right. So there’s, there’s, there’s tech hardware, there’s the tech software. And then there’s the soft, soft stuff, which is just mindset shifts, change management, helping people understand that there is a better way that just because you’ve always done it this way is a really bad foundation for how you should do it going forward. And so we try to combine these mindset shifts of we could do that if rather than we can’t do that, because avoiding however, the five worst words you can have in any process improvement engagement, which hopefully you’ve tightly scoped, which is a wouldn’t it be wonderful if he is not one of the words? Wouldn’t it be wonderful with five words? And the answer is, yeah, that would be wonderful. But it’s out of scope. Let’s stay focused, and figure out how to use the tools we have, for example, before we go off and scope, a new piece of software that we’ve learned about and which certainly would do wonderful things for us. But we don’t really need it right now. We’ve got to get our house in order, as Karen says first, and

Karen Dunn Skinner 39:41
and then really, it’s like, there’s so much you can do with technology. And every day there’s something new that comes across our desk or there’s a vendor that reaches out to us that has a solution that looks amazing. And and it’s just figuring out the right fit for those with our clients with other small firms. You know, it’s got to be software that you’re going to use. It’s got to be software It’s fit for the purpose you want to put it to. And it’s got to take your existing process and make it better. Because often people will just buy technology and they won’t necessarily have thought about the underlying process and the technology doesn’t solve the problem. So you know, we’d like to get their house in order. As David said, we’d like to get those processes in place, and then find the right technology that really makes a difference for them.

Marlene Gebauer 40:22
So we have reached the point in the podcast where we normally answer ask our crystal ball question, but we’re calling this the the Valentine question. And so what advice would each of you give to another couple who are considering working in the same field or in the same business?

David Skinner 40:45
You want to go first, you want me to go first?

Greg Lambert 40:48
This is one of those where they’re not gonna agree. Right?

Karen Dunn Skinner 40:51
Okay, I guess that’s it. Like that’s, that’s the key piece of advice is you don’t have to agree. And just because you don’t agree, doesn’t mean you can’t do something really fantastic together. And you’re never going to be, nobody’s ever going to be perfectly aligned. And you just have to kind of go with it. I mean, if you want to start and work together in business, you just have to be really willing to, to go with the flow. When it’s your partner, I do think there, there are some complications. But then there are some things that are easier if you have good, you know, if you have really good conflict resolution strategies in your relationship, if your relationship generally has low levels of conflict, and you are really good at resolving problems, when they arise with your partner, you’ll be fine in the business, if you’re in a position where or in a relationship where you do conflict a lot about things where you’re not so great at resolving those conflicts where you hold grudges, which I know is the case for some people, obviously, if they’re thinking of starting a business together, maybe that’s not the case. But for a lot of couples, the you know, people hold grudges, and if that’s the way it is, you’re you’re not going to be successful. But if you are, if you have a strong relationship, where you have those conflict resolution skills, where you’re okay, with a certain level of disagreement and just going with it, it’ll be fine.

David Skinner 42:09
I would say that life is short. If you love your partner, and they’re your closest friend, then why not find ways to spend more time together. And we have done some amazing things, we’ve been to some amazing places. And we’ve had a tremendous amount of freedom, in terms of managing our schedule, and being able to be present in real time, with our kids, with our families, with our friends, with our community. And I think that that sort of that notion of Keeping Up with the Joneses, and making sure you’ve got the best of the best, and, you know, you’re Forget it, life is short,

Karen Dunn Skinner 42:44
we have a family van

David Skinner 42:47
fun, and enjoy each other’s company. And I would say if you’re thinking about it, think about it some more, and then jump in with both feet. It is not easy. It is full of challenges. You’ll never make as much money as well, I shouldn’t say Never you mind. But a lot of people will will look at the Joneses and go oh my gosh, If only I hadn’t become an entrepreneur, the question remains the same whether it’s with your partner, your life partner, or, or it’s either on your own being an entrepreneur can be very, very scary. And if you’re in it with your partner, then you have less of a safety net. Today’s reality is that most people, most couples, both people work. So it’s a bit of a safety net, one crimper one person who often followed their passion while the other one holds down the fort. In our case, we threw the fort out. And we both went towards our passion, which is helping people realize their full potential. And, you know, it hasn’t been easy all the time. But we’re still together. We still love each other.

Karen Dunn Skinner 43:54
And still, we all have regularly during conference call. We are

David Skinner 43:57
each other’s best friend. And I think, yeah, life is short. So if you’ve got someone that you are really close to, and you want to spend more time with them, then working together might be a way to achieve that. It’s not for everybody, for sure. But so far, it’s worked out well for

Greg Lambert 44:13
us. Oh, well. Karen, I’m glad you didn’t hold a grudge for David giving away that last talk. And law school. So what about Karen and David Skinner? Thank you very much for coming on the geek and review and sharing your love and legal tech story.

David Skinner 44:30
It’s been a pleasure.

Karen Dunn Skinner 44:31
Yeah it’s been fun.

Marlene Gebauer 44:33
And I will note all the cool people have a family minivan right, Greg?

Greg Lambert 44:36
Absolutely. Does your minivan have Wi Fi?

David Skinner 44:40
No does not use Wi Fi when you’ve got a fallen? Yes, true as true, right. Maybe having my Wi Fi in would not help anybody.

Karen Dunn Skinner 44:50
It would be just be one more Wi Fi to pay for.

David Skinner 44:52
Yep. Oh my goodness. Don’t get me started.

Marlene Gebauer 44:57
And thank you to all of our listeners. for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoy the show, share it with a colleague. We’d love to hear from you. So reach out to us on social media. I can be found on LinkedIn or on X @gebauerm and on Threads at @mgebauer66.

Greg Lambert 45:15
And I can be reached on LinkedIn and on x at @glambert. And on threads at @glambertpod. David and Karen, if someone wants to learn more about you, or about Gimbal, where would they? Where would they go look?

Karen Dunn Skinner 45:30
Oh, well, you can find out all about Gimbal at gimbalconsulting.com. And you can find me on LinkedIn, Karen Dunn Skinner, and I used to be on X but I’m not there anymore. And but you can find me on threads from time to time and on Instagram. And again, it’s just I think it’s just Karen Skinner. And you’ll see all my paintings there too.

David Skinner 45:49
You can get a hold of me on LinkedIn, David Skinner, maybe David F on Instagram, also David F. Skinner. I’m not on Facebook never have been never will be. And I gave up X when it became x. So that’s how to get ahold of us. Gimbalconsulting.com And the rest is there.

Greg Lambert 46:09
Awesome.

Marlene Gebauer 46:10
Awesome. The love and legal tech music that you hear is from Jerry David DeCicca and Eve Searles. Thank you very much Jerry and Eve.

Greg Lambert 46:17
Yeah, thanks, Jerry and even Thanks, everyone.

David Skinner 46:21
Thank you.

Karen Dunn Skinner 46:21
Thank you.

Ryan and Kate share their extensive backgrounds in legal technology, with Ryan starting in the industry in 2003 and eventually becoming the head of innovation at a law firm, while Kate began her career as an intern at a law firm and later transitioned to the vendor side, working for companies such as HighQ, Compliance HR, and Kira Systems. The couple met while working together at HighQ and became good friends before starting their own companies in 2018 and eventually dating.

When discussing the best aspects of working together, Kate mentions the empathy and understanding they have for each other’s work habits and the ability to help one another when stuck on a problem. Ryan adds that working together eliminates the need to “download” their workdays to each other every night, as they are already aware of what the other is dealing with. However, they also acknowledge the challenge of not letting work consume their entire lives and the importance of setting aside time for non-work activities.

The couple shares their experiences with reactions from others when they reveal that they work together, ranging from surprise to curiosity. They also discuss how they handle disagreements within their company, emphasizing the value of their different perspectives and the trust they have built in each other’s problem-solving abilities.

When asked about the interesting projects they are currently working on, Ryan and Kate highlight their involvement in AI-related projects, product launches, and technology evaluations for clients. They also offer advice for couples considering working together, stressing the importance of maintaining separate work and personal personas, knowing each other’s strengths, and nurturing professional friendships outside of their shared work life.

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠

Contact Us: 

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads: @glambertpod or @gebauerm66
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠ and Eve Searls

⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠Transcript

Marlene Gebauer 0:04
Welcome to The Geek in Review the podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal profession. I’m Marlene Gebauer.

Greg Lambert 0:11
And I’m Greg Lambert to Marlene for those that are watching on video. Do you notice anything different today? Yes.

Marlene Gebauer 0:17
Yes, I see. It’s all gone. It’s all gone. It’s

Greg Lambert 0:24
so occasionally, once a year or twice a year i i start all over,

Marlene Gebauer 0:29
he does a reboot. Yeah.

Greg Lambert 0:32
He does a beard reboot. And I’ve got my camera pointed the other direction. So you can see my She-Hulk poster poster. And you can hear pod dog. So, for our love and legal tech feature this week, we have with us some, some old friends of ours, Ryan McClead, the co founder and CEO, pretty old. It’s gonna show five now, Ryan. So Ryan McClead Is the co founder and CEO of Sente Advisors, and Kate Boyd is the CEO of Cynthia advisors. Ryan, Kate, welcome to The Geek in Review.

Kate Boyd 1:15
Thank you. We’re happy to be here.

Marlene Gebauer 1:18
So I know Ryan’s been on a few times. And Kate has actually talked to us as well. So they kind of know how this this works. Although this one’s a little different, because we’re sort of delving into sort of relationships and work and relationships. So you guys have a really sort of deep history, both of you in sort of the legal tech area. And you know, we’re using tech, legal tech kind of loosely, to cover a lot of the sort of the related professions as well. Tell us a little bit about, you know, what you have done and what you’re you’re doing now. I’ll start with Ryan.

Ryan McClead 1:55
So I started in legal tech 2003, I started answering the Help Desk at a law firm and did that for several years moving up through IT, eventually moving into knowledge management. When I was asked, What do you know about knowledge management? I said, What’s that? You’re gonna be great at this. Suddenly, I was the head of knowledge management.

That’s what everybody says. Yeah, exactly.

Still say. So I did Knowledge Management. Then I when we combined with a larger firm, I was the head of innovation globally, around innovation. The firm for several years. Now went to

Greg Lambert 2:37
that was pretty early to right Ryan. I mean,

Ryan McClead 2:40
I was one of the first people I knew with innovation in my title. That was 2013 Probably no yeah. 2013.

Greg Lambert 2:48
They give those things out like candy now right, Marlene?

Marlene Gebauer 2:55
So deserving Greg deserve anything.

Ryan McClead 2:58
I went to the vendor side, joined HighQ, which is where I met Kate and then was at Neota Logic for a few years and then five years ago, we started Sente. My partner Shashi and I started setting cake came along a few years after that,

Marlene Gebauer 3:13
She needed some convincing, okay, so So Kate, like, tell us tell us your origin story.

Kate Boyd 3:18
So I started working at a law firm as an intern. When I was in college, I was actually doing the press clippings by hand for Sherman and Sterling.

Marlene Gebauer 3:27
Ah, yeah.

Kate Boyd 3:30
And that segwayed as I was graduating from college, I talked them into hiring me to build one of their first websites. Back when lawyers were trying to figure out whether or not they actually needed a website. And they were pretty convinced they didn’t. But I was pretty convinced I needed a job and some insurance. So I talked them into hiring me. So I worked at Sherman and Sterling and then White and Case always focused on kind of digital marketing, marketing technology, CRM systems can have that side of the world, and kind of married that across to matter management and intranet. So working closely with the KM and IT teams at firms. And that’s what led me eventually, to shift to the vendor side. I had gone back to get my MBA and realized that I needed to take that role at law firms and blow it up a little bit. So I went, I was at HighQ for a time I was at Compliance HR now and and I was at Kira Systems. Before in 2018, I co founded a litigation finance company. And that was doing that. When Ryan and I started talking about what was going on at Sente. And at that point, we’d survived COVID. So we figured, hey, let’s give it a shot and see if we can work together. We’ve spent so much time together now.

Greg Lambert 4:49
Well, Ryan kind of teased about two of you meeting So Kate, do you mind just kind of elaborating a little bit more how, how’d you find yourself working together?

Kate Boyd 4:58
So I had been at HighQ like coming up on a year. And Ryan was a well known thought leader, obviously in the legal space.

Greg Lambert 5:09
Because he writes extensively on three geeks.

Kate Boyd 5:15
So I was glad I had to spend an entire week kind of marketing planning session where Ryan McClead to name was in the top corner as if he joins HighQ, so much is going to be able to happen. And then when he accepted, we had the joy of kind of building up a team here in the US focused on kind of talking to clients about how they could use that technology.

Marlene Gebauer 5:38
You guys had been working together before you guys started dating, right? So how, like, how did that occur? And how was that? I’m trying to be so careful. I’m looking at Ryan.

Greg Lambert 5:54
And was there an Irish Pub involved?

Ryan McClead 5:56
There’s always an Irish pub involved. Yeah, no, we had we worked together at HighQ, we became very good friends. We left HighQ about the same time, I joined Neotia Logic, Kate join Compliance HR, which was a sister company of Neota. And then she was only there a short time and went to Kira, and was, was a Kira for a while. So we had about a year and a half, I think that we worked together. But we become good friends at that point. You know, we then in 2018, we were both starting our own companies, that that’s always a great time to start dating.

Marlene Gebauer 6:37
No stress, nothing,

Ryan McClead 6:38
No stress, you know, to people starting companies that What could possibly go wrong. And we started dating late 2018, about the same time we started companies. And Kate says, I’m going to get a dog. And I said, That’s a terrible idea. Why would you do that? Well, the kids want a dog. All right. So we went out, we got a dog together. I helped her pick up the dog. And then what what happened was, she had to go to an office, I was working from home, we were living separately. And I ended up babysitting the dog all the time. So my mom found out I was dating Kate, because she heard the dog in the background. And said, what was that a dog?

Greg Lambert 7:25
she was talking about you?

Ryan McClead 7:28
So yeah, so we kind of did everything backwards. We had a dog together, about the same time we started dating, and then a pandemic happened. And that that sort of changed things a bit. You want to add anything to that Kate?

Kate Boyd 7:47
I think that pretty much covers it. Our first date was a baseball game.

Ryan McClead 7:54
Oh, yes. We did go to a baseball game. That was our first date.

Marlene Gebauer 7:59
Yes, official date. Nice. Yes.

Did they win?

Kate Boyd 8:02
I don’t remember.

Greg Lambert 8:06
If it was a playoff game than No,

Ryan McClead 8:08
Yeah, no, it was definitely. It was late in the season.

Marlene Gebauer 8:13
You know, you’ve mentioned that, you know, you were both starting new companies. So that was sort of when you were working separately, and now you actually work together in the same company? What have you found, like, the best thing about that is sort of, you know, working in, you know, either sort of related professions or actually in the same company,

Ryan McClead 8:32
I’m gonna let you answer this one.

Kate Boyd 8:33
I’ll answer this one. So I can, I’ll jump in, I’ll jump in and let Ryan stepped in after the thing, though, the way we work and the intensity with which both of us work. I mean, we often spend a lot of time both during the day, and then after thinking about and developing ideas and working on things. So it’s nice. Because we work so closely together, we both know where the ebbs and flows are. And so there’s a lot of empathy for, you know, what are you doing? Can I help you with it, or I know, you just need the next two days to kind of be in a bubble. And we can kind of protect each other to be able to do work at the level that we want to do it. We also can help bring new ideas and ways of looking at things when one of us gets stuck with something. So I think that that makes it work really well. Ryan, what would you add?

Ryan McClead 9:29
Well, I think when we were working separately, we we essentially downloaded every night anyway, it was You won’t believe what I dealt with all day. Right? So we were already living each other’s days, reliving them every night and there’s something about not having to do that. Right. I know what you went through today. I know what you were dealing with today. We were working on it together. That’s it’s it’s kind of nice if you’re in that position and You work well together. It’s, it’s nice to have that the sense of we’re we’re in this together. And I know what you’re, I know what you’re doing. And I, you know, the downside is it’s very easy to work all the time. Especially if you’re you know, workaholics who enjoy what you do. It means we have to occasionally say, Okay, we’re not working, Hey, kids, we’re not working for the next few hours, let’s go do something else. And variably we talk about work. But in some ways, I think it’s actually easier to be working together in a high powered jobs than it is to be working separately in high powered jobs. So she may disagree,

Greg Lambert 10:47
I was going to ask Kate, tell, tell us a little bit about some of the challenges that you faces as a couple that works together. I know, you probably have different offices within the house. But I mean, you’re always within 20 feet of each other, right?

Kate Boyd 11:03
We actually have our office, I’m in the office, and his desk is right there. So we actually very often,

Greg Lambert 11:11
they’re really closer, so you can reach over and slap him on the back of the head when he says something.

Marlene Gebauer 11:15
Like, no.

Kate Boyd 11:16
So there are times when we don’t entirely agree. And this isn’t just between us, I think this is everyone. At Sente, there are times when we don’t we don’t walk into a problem from the same approach. And so they’re often is at a time and a process of like, okay, I understand, that’s why you’re doing that. But why, you know, Can you can you approach that differently? And what about have you thought about these other things? So I think just, I think we both are, and, again, everyone in the company, we’re fairly careful to make sure that those kind of challenges that are so healthy and so important to, to being good at what we do, that we couch them from a productive standpoint, that’s something that occasionally and probably I am the one who gets more fiery, when I’m not listened to when those things come up.

Greg Lambert 12:16
Ryan, any other challenges that you face?

Ryan McClead 12:19
Well, I think I think the big one is not letting work become everything. But I think we do a pretty good job of that. We both very much like what we do, we enjoy the work we do with our clients. So in some ways, it’s nice when we had separate jobs at different companies, invariably, the schedules didn’t align. So it would be a day on Thursday that I had to get something done for Friday and would spend all night Thursday night working on it. And you know, that was the one night she didn’t have anything she had to do. And so things didn’t quite match up. That doesn’t really happen anymore, because we’re new tend to be working on the same thing. So if there’s a time that we know, we need to work, we work and it’s not a big deal. We can, you know, we’re we’re both on that same page. And yeah, I mean, I think that’s the, that’s the big, the big thing that’s a challenge is to not work constantly. But I think we do pretty well with it.

Marlene Gebauer 13:25
What are some things you like to do to, like, take a break from work? You know, what are those sorts of activities

Kate Boyd 13:33
Ryan has board games,

Ryan McClead 13:34
so I’ve got a lot of the visual for this candidate. Behind me I’ve got so our company names sent a advise Yes, that’s a is a term from the game go. That is many 1000s year old game. And Sente essentially means initiative. So if you have your pieces in a Sente, a position, it means the your opponent has to respond to that or they’re going to lose some territory. That was why we named the company Sente. But the the real reasons we wanted something that was game related. Shashi, my partner and I were both big board game fans. He’s got a similar collection at home. And, you know, we we enjoy the mechanisms, the structures, the logic behind those tools that sort of gives us an opportunity to exercise our brains in a way that is still it fits with what we do. You know, it’s very much problem solving. But it gets us away from legal technology. So yeah, that’s that’s where Sente came from, but that’s, that’s what the backdrop behind me here is.

Marlene Gebauer 14:51
And I know you sort of have regular board game nights and you know, do reviews of board games as well, right?

Ryan McClead 14:58
Yeah, it was something that we started when Josh and I were both at the OTA and we had regular nights at HighQ. Game night, did regular game nights with the with the team as well? Yeah, I think I think it’s it’s something that we enjoy that that gets people working together thinking together, but is different than working all the time.

Marlene Gebauer 15:26
So I’m waiting for the cheap laugh response here when I asked this question, but what kind of reaction do you get when you tell others you both work together? And that you’re basically together? And that you also work in the in the same company? Do people know? I mean, is it? Is it that widely known? Are people surprised? What kind of reactions do you get?

Ryan McClead 15:52
Go ahead Kate.

Kate Boyd 15:53
So I think it was I don’t know, is this so people who are meeting us for the for the first time as a couple tend to that say, I can’t imagine working with my spouse all the time. Like that’s crazy. So we often get that when when we’re meeting new friend couples, that that’s often the response we get. We have had clients who knew us separately and knew that we were working together but didn’t realize we were together. At that we have had reactions where they’ve said things to each other. Like, I think there might be something going hand between those two. Come on, actually, we’re married, it’s not, we didn’t mean great,

Greg Lambert 16:39
or they thought they were just hyper aware.

Kate Boyd 16:44
As we bring on new clients, we do tend to run about it now.

Greg Lambert 16:48
And I know that Kate gets a lot of really Ryan?

Kate Boyd 16:57
Not at all.

Greg Lambert 16:59
Well, Kate, you kind of talked about this earlier when? Because you are working. And really I mean, there’s at least three of you who are decision makers at Santa Fe, because you get the two of you Plus, you get Shashi as well. How do you handle situations where one or more of you may not agree? This is how we how we go forward? How do you worked that out?

Ryan McClead 17:25
Yeah, so it’s what’s interesting. I mean, Kate mentioned it, how we all come at things from different perspective. And I think that’s part of part of the value that we bring to our clients is, we all have 20 plus years experience in the industry on from multiple sides. But we do all tackle problems from very different directions. And we over the last several years have built up an appreciation for each other’s approach to problem solving. So when we come together with problem, we will often sort of take it on our own and say this is what I would do. I don’t think we’ve never had a impasse. Where it was No, I totally disagree with you. I think Shashi and I probably get more into that than Kate does with either of us. I think she and Shashi tend to agree more. And I’m the odd man out, but I fully trust them. And I think every time we’ve had something that would, you know, even appear to be an impasse or disagreement, it’s not it doesn’t last long, we get to the point where you explain it to me, show me what you’re seeing, well, here’s how I see it, this is what I’m thinking, and almost invariably wind up with a better solution than any one of us would have had on our own. So I think over the last five years, we’ve learned to appreciate that. And those moments when we think I don’t know what this person is thinking, what are they doing, there’s enough to sort of hang your hat on that. I trust that they’re coming at this from a different perspective, and I’m going to learn something here. But we will probably find something that neither of us would have come up with on our own.

Greg Lambert 19:21
And Kate, what’s your opinion, and how was Ryan wrong?

Kate Boyd 19:26
That is true. We laugh that we all have superpowers. And I think all of us really like being part of a team. And I think one of the things that can be lonely when you’re a consultant is that you don’t have that same team kind of infrastructure often. So this, this group really leans into each other, to make sure that ideas are talked through before we start acting on behalf of a client. Hey, actually, I agree with him.

Marlene Gebauer 19:52
What are the interesting things that the two of you are doing now in in legal tech, and I imagine there’s a ton of them.

Ryan McClead 19:59
Yeah. So the one thing to answer, which is it, it is AI. I hesitate to say it. We’re making a lot of interesting stuff with AI. But it is the monster that has eaten every conversation for the last 18 months, raises its head. That’s all we talked about. So there is an element of, okay, I’m tired of this. On the other hand, it’s cool tech, and I love cool tech. And we love cool tech. That’s why you know, why we do what we do. And we’re finding interesting things to do with it that I don’t think a lot of people are doing. So that’s probably the one most interesting thing at the moment.

Marlene Gebauer 20:43
Now, that’s the secret sauce, figuring out how to use it in ways that others aren’t.

Ryan McClead 20:48
Yeah,

Kate Boyd 20:48
I’d say that that’s probably the space where we’re prototyping the most right. And that’s something that Sente does a lot of is help help organizations prototype different technology. Some of the other projects that as a group, we’ve worked on product launches, and a lot of tech evaluations to helping look at different solutions for clients. And both of those have kind of been a focus for the early part of this year.

Greg Lambert 21:17
So normally, you and Ryan, you’ve been on the show, at least at least once, maybe twice. So you’ve taken the time to answer a crystal ball question, but we’re shifting it a little bit and calling out our Valentine’s question. And Ryan, I’ll start with you, and then Kate get get your opinion on this. So if a couple were to come up to you, and get your advice on, they’re considering working together, how do you how do you make it work? And what some good advice that you give to them?

Ryan McClead 21:47
Well, I don’t think it’s, it’s probably not for everybody, you know, I like to think that we’re special.

Marlene Gebauer 21:55
You are special, you are special.

Ryan McClead 21:58
I think if you if you have a good relationship, and you have a good working relationship, it can be quite beneficial and satisfying to to be working together on things. So it’s kind of the best of both worlds. I think, in terms of advice. Even though we live together, we work together, we’re together, most of the time we’ve had, I feel like we have sort of different personas, there’s an element of work me and personal B and work Kate and personal Kate. And we you know, like any couple we have disagreements our personal lives, I don’t feel that those actually bleed over into work. And vice versa. You know, in some ways, the work piece is easier to navigate. Because of what we were saying in terms of how we we know we come at things differently, which actually helps in our personal lives. I think so. I don’t know, I guess be us would be if you could be us, then you could do this. And it would be good for you. But I don’t know what what other advice I would offer.

Greg Lambert 23:11
All right, Kate, what does what does it take to “be us?”

Kate Boyd 23:14
It’s funny, because before I joined, we actually did go meet with friends who are couples who work together and ask their advice, I would say so I would pick up on what Ryan said there is a work persona and a personal persona and make sure that you don’t let the daytime work things bleed into your personal life and vice versa. So I think that’s that’s a good advice. I think that you know, in the in the work setting, know your lanes. So we know where we need to hand off projects and who’s who’s kind of stronger in which areas so that, that we don’t run into conflicts there. So I think that kind of stay in your lane. And then the only one that Ryan didn’t mention that has been really important to me is to maintain my professional friendships apart from Ryan and I know he does as well. So I still make time to go have coffees and see my other professional friends and talk to them not in a sales and business development way just in a you know your people who I value in my professional network, and I want to I want to make sure I carve out time in the day to spend time with them. And I think that’s a really important thing that’s easy to lose when your life and your relationship and your work are all tied together.

Greg Lambert 24:34
Yeah. Great, great advice. So yeah, Ryan McClead and Kate Boyd, thank you both for coming on The Geek in Review and sharing your love and LegalTech story.

Kate Boyd 24:43
Thank you.

Marlene Gebauer 24:44
And of course, thanks to all of you our listeners for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoy the show, share it with a colleague. We’d love to hear from you. So reach out to us on social media. I can be found on LinkedIn or on X at @gebauerm and on Thread’s at @mgebauer66.

Greg Lambert 25:02
And I can be reached on LinkedIn or at @glambert on X, or you can reach me on Threads at @glambertpod. Kate and Ryan, if people want to learn more about to you or since a advisors where’s the best place to? To reach out? Kate?

Kate Boyd 25:17
So our website is SENTE, S E N T E advisors.com. And we’re active on LinkedIn. I’m on LinkedIn. Ryan is too. I think you’ve got some other handles.

Ryan McClead 25:29
Yeah, I’m not on Twitter anymore. or X. So LinkedIn is pretty much it.

Greg Lambert 25:35
All right.

Marlene Gebauer 25:36
Okay. Thank you. And the love and legal tech music that you hear is from Jerry, David DeCicca and Eve Searls. Thank you both for that.

Greg Lambert 25:44
Alright. Thanks, Jerry. Thanks, Eve. All right. Thanks, everybody.

Marlene Gebauer 25:47
Thank you.

Kate Boyd 25:48
Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Kelly provides an overview of Onna, explaining that the company primarily serves enterprise and corporate clients by managing their unstructured data with a focus on internal collaboration apps. Onna collects and integrates with various data sources to establish live connectivity and data transformation, making the data ready for searching and discovery to power downstream workflows such as litigation requests, early case assessment, and investigations. Kelly emphasizes the importance of data management as a necessary enabler for future innovations in the legal tech space.

The conversation touches on the challenges of managing data in the enterprise and how Onna helps clients improve their processes. Kelly explains that Onna’s approach involves helping enterprises build a data foundation that is accessible when needed, allowing them to skip several steps in the traditional linear workflow. This value proposition is particularly appealing to enterprises looking to avoid downstream costs by having better visibility and control over their data.

Kelly also discusses the impact of generative AI on the legal industry, noting that while there is a lot of buzz around the technology, companies are realizing the importance of getting their data in order before diving into experimentation and implementation. She believes that the awareness brought by the hype around generative AI is driving companies to make fundamental investments in data management.

Looking to the future, Kelly shares her crystal ball prediction for the next 5-10 years, envisioning a world where natural language communication and automation will transform the way legal workflows are handled. She imagines a scenario where drafting a contract could be done through verbal communication and a system that asks questions and generates the agreement, reducing the need for manual, hands-on work.

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠ 

Contact Us: 

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads: @glambertpod or @gebauerm66
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠

Transcript

Marlene Gebauer 0:07
Welcome to The Geek in Review. The podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal industry. I’m Marlene Gebauer.

Greg Lambert 0:13
And I’m Greg Lambert. And we are joined by least chronologically our final guest. I don’t know how we’re going to release these. But Kelly Griswold is the CEO, from Onna. Kelly, thanks for taking time to talk to us.

Kelly Griswold 0:29
Thank you so much for having me here and for letting me wrap this up for you.

Marlene Gebauer 0:34
That’s cool. So Kelly, you know, what brings you to legal week? And, you know, how are you going to use this event to interact with customers or potential customers? And, you know, gather new ideas to bring back with you?

Kelly Griswold 0:49
Yes. So legal week coming to legal week, I have three objectives, usually, first and foremost is it’s a great opportunity to interact with customers and partners and kind of like, get that live feedback in terms of trends in the market and how they’re using their your product and how the two things can intersect. So that is absolutely the primary goal for me of coming. Secondarily, I think just what’s the buzz? What what are people doing, and kind of helps you get like that injection of innovation in the legal tech industry. And then for us, our team is, we’re fully remote. So it’s nice to have events like this, to come together build a sort of a community across the organization. And this has been a great event for us to do all three things.

Greg Lambert 1:44
Excellent. So there may be listeners that aren’t familiar with Onna, can you give us kind of a high level of what you do, who and who your typical client base is?

Kelly Griswold 1:54
Sure. So unlike a lot of legal technology, our customer base is primarily enterprise or corporates, it always has been. And that’s probably because of what we do. And that is that we’re managing data with a focus on internal collaboration apps. And we are able to collect and integrate with those data sources to establish live connectivity, and data transformation. So all of that data, and Onna becomes ready to search and discoverable to power downstream workflows, like litigation requests, early case assessment, investigations. And it’s interesting at this conference, I’m sure you’ve had lots of conversations about it’s you AI everywhere all at once every, you know, that’s all everyone’s talking about, well, I don’t have any flashy Gen AI announcements for you. Part of that is because like, we really believe it’s about the data. And so what we have done for our customers for years, which is manage their unstructured data, is what we believe will continue to be a necessary enabler of a lot of future innovation in this space,

Greg Lambert 3:08
We can really tell it’s the end of the conference, because they’re breaking down. And there’s a guy that’s got a radio that keeps walking through. So to hear that, that’s what it is, we’ll just power through color,

Marlene Gebauer 3:19
it’s color sound, you’re here with us,

Kelly Griswold 3:23
You can turn the podcast into a dance party. Extra interesting.

Marlene Gebauer 3:27
It’s like, so I mean, I know, like enterprise. I mean, that’s always been a challenging area. I mean, you know, and very time consuming. So, you know, what is it that that you bring to the table for your clients to improve that process?

Kelly Griswold 3:43
Well, it’s really about, it’s about the data, and what we came to the market with a focus on the enterprise. And that sits sort of upstream of a lot of the workflows that your law firms or service providers are offering to customers. And what I mean by that is that most enterprises, they want to manage their own data, and then find what they need from that to then go downstream from there. They want to have that access, control and visibility into their data. And they want that themselves. And that’s really the challenge that we’ve been solving ever since we formed the company, you know, years ago. So that’s, I think what’s helped us crack that enterprise net is that we’re taking workflows that have historically been very kind of transactional and linear, which is I need to get information from my data. I’m going to first collect it, and then I’m going to process it, and then I’m going to review it. And really a better way of doing that is investing in building a data foundation. So it’s there when you need it. And then you’re skipping to step sort of three or four. And that’s something that’s a value proposition that is much more acutely realized by enterprises who are avoiding that sort of downstream costs by being able to have much better visibility and control over their data.

Greg Lambert 5:10
Yeah, we were joking. And I have said it many times this week that we had that 25 year old overnight problem of, wow, our data is really not great. And every time there seems to be this advancement in technology, whether it is database structures, whether it’s Large Language Models as it is, now, we go back to that problem of boy, our data is really crappy. And so, you know, how do we fix that? Do you see, I know, this is something that the Onna has been doing for a while, do you see there being a much more intensive focus on gathering the data and structuring it in a way that the new tools can be used?

Kelly Griswold 5:54
The short answer is yes. But I think we’re at the tip of the iceberg. I think that what we’re seeing from our customers is the trend and the noise around Gen AI ai, has maybe taken some of the discussion out of how important your unstructured data is, and building that data foundation. So this trend of companies now need to have control over and visibility into all of the data in their collaboration applications for you know, eDiscovery, or other use cases, that kind of started in 2020. And it’s been emerging really fast. So this sort of data and application proliferation inside the enterprise, people are talking less about it, it doesn’t mean it’s less of a challenge. And so we’re talking more about generative AI. And last year, last year was the year of experimentation. This year is the year where companies are looking to implementation, and you talked about that, like age old problem. So the ones who have moved from experimentation to implementation are pretty quickly circling kind of back to basics, and they’re like, oh, my gosh, garbage in garbage out, what I really need to be doing right now is not tinkering with a bunch of Large Language Models and fine tuning them and whatnot, it’s about figuring out how I get my data in order, and then how I can use that to sort of more transparently and sustainably adopt these new technologies that I now have access to, to drive meaningful outcomes for my company.

Yeah, clean up first and do the process, you know, clean up first, and then start the experimentation.

Yeah, and I think, you know, we’re not starting from square one here. There have been companies, not just Onna, but many companies in this space that for the last 10 years have taken this kind of, you know, peer to peer adoption tooling that’s hit the enterprise and helped build governance around that. And a lot of these technologies can be applied to what we’re now trying to do with generative. But I think on the positive side, there’s this halo effect where everybody’s talking about it, but it’s bringing awareness into some of these fundamental investments that like, you’re finally realizing there’s more value to you carving out the time to making.

Marlene Gebauer 8:14
Tell us about some of the big accomplishments for the company, you know, what are some of your goals, you know, on the agenda for the upcoming year or two?

Kelly Griswold 8:22
The thing that I’m proudest of is at the company is we have amazing customers. And so we’re trusted by some of the, you know, largest and most recognizable enterprises to manage, you know, really important data for them for really important matters. And I think it’s a testament to the technology and the value that it adds. And also a testament to like, we have a really good team. And we have a team that our customers rely on and like to work with. It’s the combination of those two things, being able to trust the technology, and then trust the people that you’re working with, that help you not just solve the first problem, but also build an add value into the next few that you’re going to be tackling. And so I think that that Onna just does a really good job of that. And I’m proud of it.

Marlene Gebauer 9:10
Do you have advice or thoughts on sort of how to sustain or create those types of trust relationships? Because, you know, I agree with you, I think that that’s critically important in terms of doing business and working on projects, you know, that there’s there’s got to be a good feeling between the parties.

Kelly Griswold 9:29
Yes, I think it definitely comes back to accountability, and setting the right tone for partnership. And really, technology, especially in the legal industry, where we didn’t all grow up this technologist, like some of this is new for us, and understanding and appreciating that and having empathy that like, sometimes technology breaks and we’re gonna work through it because if you’re just you’re adopting something that’s that’s really complex on the back end, if you’re just going to expect it to be seamless, that the whole time, you’re probably going to be disappointed. But then at the other end of that, being able to get in front of it, and then work through issues and challenges as they come up and really partner collaboratively. You know, sometimes that’s on the tech side. And sometimes that’s, you know, a customer coming to you and saying, I just really need your help with this thing. And I know it’s outside the scope of what your software is providing me, but how can you help me work through it? Those are the conversations that build that culture. And at the end of the day, just knowing that we’re accountable for providing our customers with an experience where they’re getting value from the product and standing behind that.

Greg Lambert 10:42
Now, I know we talk a lot about generative AI and AI and technology. But the, you know, there’s other things that are going on in the market as well. And in fact, the the two of you both were down in Miami back in December, at the TLTF Conference. And so there’s a lot of private Equity and venture capital that’s coming into the legal tech market. They’re looking at clients, products, technology side of the industry, finally, seems seems all of a sudden, like there’s a lot more attention in those areas. So, you know, what, are you seeing that affecting how maybe you approach the business needs of your clients and others?

Kelly Griswold 11:26
Yeah, well, certainly, I think that it is wonderful for the industry to see private Equity and venture capital come in industries where it’s been buoyed by capital, innovation accelerates. And this industry has been innovating for years. But it’s, I think, really primed to kind of hit the next level of that. And this all comes back to the fact that it’s, it’s the confluence of the prevalence of unstructured data inside of organizations. There’s been a lot of innovation in tech around structured data. But the legal industry is uniquely positioned, because we’ve for years been sort of processing and applying, you know, systems like TAR, to being able to transform unstructured datasets into structured data sets that are able to be used with downstream capabilities. And I think that that’s triggering a lot of the interest is that, okay, we have this very language based practice of law. And we now have technological capabilities that can be married to this, like, there’s going to be disruption here. And I think at the TLTF Summit, specifically, there was a lot of like, really interesting conversations about like, how do we put these recipes together? And where are you going to see the most innovation fastest, but like, on one end, it’s about like, accessing and transforming unstructured data into structured datasets. And on the other hand, it’s about like, using these capabilities to marry this to workflow and automation that then is able to create really domain specific outcomes on the other end.

Marlene Gebauer 13:05
Yeah, and I mean, the conversation was fantastic. Although I, you know, I sort of wonder when I kind of go back to my client base, it’s like, is that going to be terrifying? You know, for them?

Kelly Griswold 13:16
Yes. It’s gonna be terrifying. And also, I think, wonderful in certain ways. There’s going to be a greater need than ever, on people that think like lawyers about how we can ethically and sustainably use these technologies, and where the best places are to apply them and how to make sure that we’re doing that in kind of a risk adjusted way. I think we’ve started to see some of that and more legislation around this and applying the expertise of that industry to that challenge, I think is going to be important. And then also just kind of putting it out there like, there are certain things that we as humans are uniquely capable of doing. And these are things that we typically like doing. The parts, that technology automates may not be the highest and best use of our time. And so I’d love for this to be an advancement where we’re getting back some of our human time and giving away some of the things that are less valuable. But that change is terrifying. So I think that will be kind of a predominant theme.

Marlene Gebauer 14:31
Yeah, kind of goes back to those trust relationships sort of being able, you have clients, I have clients kind of walking, Greg has clients sort of walking them through this and sort of just explain the hows and the whys. And you know what the benefit is? Yeah. And getting them comfortable with it.

Kelly Griswold 14:46
Yes, exactly.

Marlene Gebauer 14:49
So now’s the time where we do our crystal ball question. So what we do is we ask you to put your crystal ball in front of you, and tell us about like what challenges or changes or trends that you know, we think that you think you’re going to see for the next maybe two to four years. And you can adjust that timeframe if you want.

Kelly Griswold 15:09
I think I’ll go on the long end of that timeframe. And we’ve been talking a little bit about, you know, how people are reacting to the innovation and the new technologies we’ve had over the course of this podcast. When I kind of take a step back, and I think, what is the future going to look like? I have an eight year old and a 10 year old. And sometimes I take a step back and look at how they’re interacting with technology. They don’t type. Everything is out there running Google searches, you know, voice to text, and thinking through like, how are we going to be drafting a contract, and maybe it’s three years, 5-10 years, I think that it will be about breaking down workflows, about automation, and, about verbal and natural language communication. So my crystal ball has, you know, what we’re going through, and we’re kind of, you know, populating workflows for CLM to draft a contract. And maybe that’s more efficient now, because we have synthesis, synthesization, and summarization with Large Language Models, but like, that’s gonna get trumped up with how this next generation is using technology. And where you could sit on a podcast, and we could talk about, you know, the licensing rights to the podcast, and there will be a system somewhere that maybe we don’t even see that asks us a number of questions, and we’ll generate a licensing agreement and we, in natural language will, will be communicating those things to a lot of the sort of pen and paper hands on keyboard work that gets done right now. And like, I think that that’s where this industry is going. And that’s going to be crazy.

Marlene Gebauer 16:54
Gonna be very exciting.

Kelly Griswold 16:55
Yes.

Greg Lambert 16:57
Well, Kelly Griswold, CEO from Onna, thank you very much for taking the time to talk with us at LegalWeek.

Kelly Griswold 17:04
Thank you very much for having me.

Marlene Gebauer 17:05
Thank you so much. And thank you all of our listeners for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoy the show, share it with a colleague. We’d love to hear from you. So reach out to us on social media. I can be found on LinkedIn or on X at @gebauerm. And on threads at @mgebauer66

Greg Lambert 17:24
And I can be reached on LinkedIn and on X at @glambert. Kelly, someone wanted to learn more about you or Onna, where’s the best place to find you?

Kelly Griswold 17:35
Well, you can certainly go to our website at Onna.com. O N N A and you can absolutely reach me on LinkedIn.

Marlene Gebauer 17:44
Terrific. And as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David DeCicca Thank you very much Jerry.

Greg Lambert 17:50
All right. Thank you Jerry.

Michael and Jill discuss the advantages and challenges of working closely together in the same organization. They highlight the benefits of being able to bounce ideas off each other in real-time and the ability to seamlessly cover for one another when family responsibilities arise. However, they also acknowledge the lack of boundaries between work and home life, which can be both a blessing and a curse.

The Bommaritos also detail their work at 273 Ventures, particularly their focus on developing Large Language Models (LLMs) with a clean data approach. Jill, one of the world’s first certified AI auditors, brings her expertise in compliance and risk management to ensure that the models are built ethically and in accordance with legal standards. Michael shares his excitement about the potential applications of their LLMs, such as automating due diligence processes and drafting contract revisions based on identified risks.

When asked about the reactions they receive from others regarding working together, the couple admits that most people express sympathy and curiosity about how they manage to do it successfully. They attribute their success to their long history together and the shared experiences they have had, both personally and professionally.

Finally, the Bommaritos offer advice to other couples considering working in the same field or business. They emphasize the importance of being certain that both partners are fully committed to the idea, as it can be an all-consuming experience. They also stress the significance of knowing each other well before embarking on such a venture, as a strong foundation is crucial for navigating the challenges that come with working closely together.

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠

Contact Us: 

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads: @glambertpod or @gebauerm66
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠ and Eve Searls

⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠Transcript

Marlene Gebauer 0:04
Welcome to The Geek in Review the podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal profession. I’m Marlene Gebauer,

Greg Lambert 0:11
And I’m Greg Lambert. Well, for our love and tech feature this week, we have with us Michael Bommarito, who is the CEO at 273 Ventures, and Julian Bommarito, who is the co founder and chief risk officer at 273. Ventures. So, Julian and Michael, welcome.

Jillian Bommarito 0:31
Thank you.

Michael Bommarito 0:31
Hi, I again. Yeah,

Greg Lambert 0:34
and our first question is where’s foggy?

Michael Bommarito 0:34
Yeah, foggy is currently Leeming.

Jillian Bommarito 0:40
He’s in timeout for bad behavior. not invited to any press events.

Michael Bommarito 0:47
Still Alive, though. He did survive Christmas dinner because the other rooster unfortunately did not think a hawk which is it a sore point with the kids? But yeah, I was gonna have to break the news. You guys that foggy was gone by matter of kind of selection process. Fate saved him fate intervened.

Greg Lambert 1:06
My goodness, because otherwise I’d be crying through the rest of this interview.

Marlene Gebauer 1:09
I know it would be it would be very sad.

Michael Bommarito 1:12
If you’ve met Flowers, then you really would have been sad, right?

Marlene Gebauer 1:16
Was he nicer?

Jillian Bommarito 1:18
He was.

Greg Lambert 1:19
He was everyone’s nicer than foggy? Probably not.

Marlene Gebauer 1:23
Yeah. That’s probably what keeps him alive.

Michael Bommarito 1:27
It probably is. There’s a sad lesson in there. We’re trying to talk about love here.

Greg Lambert 1:35
Let’s get back on track.

Marlene Gebauer 1:37
Okay. Let’s start off. You know, you both work at 273 Ventures. But can we expound upon that a little bit in terms of you know, what do you both do there? Maybe discuss a little bit about what you used to do before 273?

Jillian Bommarito 1:52
Are we doing ladies first?

Michael Bommarito 1:53
Probably should.

Jillian Bommarito 1:55
So as Greg said, I’m the Chief Risk Officer at 273. So I get to, you know, constantly check mike, make sure he’s not doing anything that’s disallowed, keep him in line.

Greg Lambert 2:07
That’s a big risk.

Jillian Bommarito 2:10
Nothing crazy. I know that it’s just a job by itself. No, but it’s really nice that we do work together closely. Because we can kind of in real time bounce ideas off each other. And I can say, well, maybe we shouldn’t do that, or that’s amazing. No one else is doing that. Because we’re doing it the right way.

Michael Bommarito 2:30
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I think one of the things that is inevitable when you work in like a situation like this with a spouse, and also, even more so when you work at a small organization, like we are, is the fact that you’re wearing all of these different hats, and you’re trading hats and you’re doing 55 different things. And as an organization, we again have like, no polite way of saying it’s probably too much vision. So there’s this just complete enmeshment of all the different things we’re doing across all these different things. And it really is. It’s fun, it’s engaging for the right type of people, right? Like, if you’re bored by the normal corporate job, and you really like to do stuff. Well, that’s kind of how we evolved self selected into this. Maybe relationship wise as well. Because it’s not quiet, right? This is not not exactly the quietest situation we have.

Greg Lambert 3:26
Yep. So tell us a little bit about before 273. Or, Mike, I know you’ve had your fingers in a lot of pies over the years. So Jill, what, what were you doing before this team collaboration of 273?

Jillian Bommarito 3:43
Oh, we’ve there have been lots of pies baked together in the Bommarito bakery. We Yeah, there is actually a Bommarito bakery as well that people always say I’ll do that over and I’m like, I went in to show up free baked good. So we, we were together at Lex predict we have been working together for 15 years now. Okay, lately,

Michael Bommarito 4:08
I’ll give a little bit of your backstory, right. So after I left finance, I like left working in alternative investment. I set up my own kind of shop and shingle. And Jill was a big four tax, CPA, which is a careers that is a career as a polite way of saying, you learn a lot you do a lot. There’s a lot of things about it, that can be good. On the other hand, anybody who knows those three letters knows that there’s certain seasonal elements or there’s certain like quality of life issues. And so I had reached the point in kind of the stuff I was doing alone where we said, no what for quality of life and the skills that you have and the amount of money you can make just kind of directly leveraging those skills. Maybe you shouldn’t work at Big For any more,

Jillian Bommarito 5:01
I like to prove it. I like to see daylight from, you know, February to April. Yeah.

Greg Lambert 5:10
Let’s go back a little further. So I know you guys said you work together for 15 years. Can you tell us about how you initially met? Is it really as a five year olds or? No?

Jillian Bommarito 5:22
No, we, I know Mike looks like he was 515 years ago. And he might now know we. We met in high school. And honestly, my first impression of him probably still is true today. He was kind of smarter than everybody else, and was not afraid to correct the teacher, which I thought was obnoxious. And it still is, but it’s also it turns out, he was kind of right. And some of those characteristics have grown on me some I will say, there’s still justice, you know, will will have flaws will have personality, we all have personality.

Michael Bommarito 6:07
Yeah. So more bearable, and less verbal and others.

Jillian Bommarito 6:12
But yeah, it turns out that that first impression has pretty much held true. Yeah.

Marlene Gebauer 6:18
So did you have the same class? Is that how you met? Or just, you know, was it just sort of, you know, different activities, or?

Jillian Bommarito 6:25
Yeah, you guys had a class together? And

Michael Bommarito 6:29
it’s like a pick up, right? Yeah. Yeah, we had AP.

Jillian Bommarito 6:32
AP Gov, which is kind of funny to think about now. Circling back to laws and rules.

Michael Bommarito 6:39
Full Circle, I guess, right? We never really thought about that. Yeah. So everything seems like such happenstance at some point, in retrospect, right, though, I guess is all the way back to high school and, and then I don’t know, what constitutes growing up at some point, right. It’s like, a standard I have yet to meet is probably the most honest way of describing it. But like we have grown, in whatever sense together for a while now. So it’s weird to kind of think about the before. There is a before it. It’s there. I remember it. But like, it’s not really perceived in the same way as like thinking about before we were together, whatever.

Marlene Gebauer 7:18
Yeah, it almost doesn’t seem real, because you’re at a different stage right now.

Jillian Bommarito 7:22
Right? At stage, I never would have expected if you had told me then that we would be on our fourth business together.

Greg Lambert 7:29
So after after high school, did you guys stay in touch? Had the relationship progressed after that?

Michael Bommarito 7:36
Well, we started dating in high school. And then Joe went to a different college, and then transferred back. And then I mean, it’s, it’s really been continuous like that. So it’s, it’s weird. No, they don’t. They don’t make a lot of stories like that anymore, as they say. So it’s true sound stranger now than then obviously, it once was, but I mean, you know, it’s really that simple.

Marlene Gebauer 8:01
So high school sweethearts, you know, that’s your right. It doesn’t you don’t usually hear that anymore.

Michael Bommarito 8:07
And it to be fair, I don’t think anybody would allege in any standing or with any type of faith that we’re sweet. So hey,

Greg Lambert 8:17
Speak for himself. Yeah. Right. And, and just so we know, for the audience, because we’re probably going to hear more of this. I think you have a couple of children that may be in the in the background running around.

Michael Bommarito 8:31
Yeah. Three Little Rascals three.

Marlene Gebauer 8:34
Oh, wow. Intense because we are off video.

Greg Lambert 8:37
Yeah. So here’s my only relationship advice for couples is: If you have three children, they outnumber you. So just remember that. Yeah. Did you know that

Jillian Bommarito 8:49
If we blink twice I know that you guys can see us even if the people listening? Can’t if we blink twice. Send help the children and taken over?

Marlene Gebauer 8:58
Yeah, my advice was always like cargo pants. Like, that was always my advice. Exactly.

Michael Bommarito 9:06
All on your person. Well, like the fanny packs and stuff are back now. It’s true. That’s true. That’s that’s acceptable.

Marlene Gebauer 9:13
Now totally acceptable, very stylish. What do you both think has been the best thing about, you know, sort of being in the same professional space and in the in the same organization?

Michael Bommarito 9:26
I mean, people talk about management theories of management, like management cultures. So romantic. I don’t know, we’ll get there, we’ll get there. And so many of the adjectives are words that people use in those like, theories and cultures of management are words that are family words, but they’re never actually true. Right? This is actually just at so truly is all the thing people have to try to pretend to do. Is the cynical version of it. From a management culture perspective is just like the way it is. Yeah, that easy. Again, it’s like, stupid, simple in some sense, but it’s kind of just true. At the end of every day, we live together, we have to figure stuff out. We disagree. We already disagreed, like any family, we have to communicate as you don’t stay a family if you don’t communicate. And so you just do all those things. And it’s no different. Well, she didn’t hear any

Greg Lambert 10:25
Yes. So Jill didn’t hear any of that, because she ran off to go take care of one of the kids. So we’re going to now see what Jill has to say, with this. This is almost like the old newlywed game where you couldn’t answer was,

Jillian Bommarito 10:38
I like that idea.

Greg Lambert 10:39
So Jill, what do you think is the best thing about being in the same profession,

Jillian Bommarito 10:45
it’s kind of a double edged sword, because I feel like the parts that are the best are also the worst, like we are constantly in each other’s business, we always kind of know what the other person’s working on. And personally within our household, we know what’s going on. So the great part is that you can kind of pick up like, right now, when we’re on conference calls, and there’s a kid whose home sick, we can take turns dealing with that, because we know that we need to, we’re both working towards the same thing, both professionally and for our family. You know, at the same time, we’re both doing the same thing. There’s not really any boundaries between work and home. Because when one of us is doing it, the other one kind of has in the back of their mind. You know, what they’re working on. And it’s, it’s good for getting things done. It’s not great for, like, good work life balance.

Greg Lambert 11:52
Yeah.

Jillian Bommarito 11:53
And I mean, with Mike, like, I didn’t ever stop.

Michael Bommarito 11:56
So I was like, oh, that’s the thing is like, as I alluded to earlier, it’s kind of like you knew what you were getting into from the start. And so if you wanted a kick back and do nothing, wife, well, you, you picked her husband a long time ago.

Jillian Bommarito 12:11
And our kids have his energy levels. There’s a lot of enthusiasm in the household.

Greg Lambert 12:16
Yeah, and I was gonna say with, with the, and I know, a lot of couples have talked about, especially starting businesses during the lockdown period of the pandemic, there were some rewards, but also some challenges. So what’s been some of the challenges that you guys have had to had to face? You know, over the past few years?

Jillian Bommarito 12:34
I would say, honestly, I kind of feel like we had worked it all out before, because we have both been working from home together for so long,

Greg Lambert 12:43
that there wasn’t a big change.

Jillian Bommarito 12:46
Yeah, it didn’t, it didn’t really change much. Honestly,

Michael Bommarito 12:49
another non answer is funny, like, maybe one of the more salient and relevant accounts is in like 2017, or 18. And Lex predict, we got an ISO 27,001. And at the time, we were like a distributed remote team, which was not very well contemplated by something like our auditors in the controls in the standard.

Jillian Bommarito 13:12
They were used to going to the offices checking things out, not your whole team works from home from their houses. Now, that’s more common, that’s more standard.

Michael Bommarito 13:24
Yeah. It’s kinda like we had built our pool, like our last businesses around that kind of framework. And so yeah, it’s like we were in that very well situated to adapt to COVID was essentially no change for us. made it easy.

Greg Lambert 13:39
You guys were ahead of the curve, I guess.

Michael Bommarito 13:44
Something, we were something but we were at least well prepared in this instance.

Marlene Gebauer 13:48
You know, we’ve been asking all our couples this, and we always get some really fun responses. But like, what is the kind of reaction you get when you tell others that you work? You know, for the same company? I mean, do people know, for the most part in the legal tech community, or is it something that most people don’t know?

Michael Bommarito 14:07
I’ll speak for Jill for a second and just say one word sympathy. I can imagine this. After the sympathy,

Jillian Bommarito 14:19
And it’s gonna say, usually, the response I get, if people don’t know is, well, really, how do you do that? Why do you do that? I think for a lot of people that either they know that it wouldn’t work for them. So they haven’t gone down that path, or they have gone down that path and the ones you’re, you’re talking to clearly, it’s worked. I’m kind of surprised like, again, like I said earlier, I never would have imagined this is where I would be in what I would be doing. But it works so well. Like, you know, your coworkers drives you crazy. Your partner drives you crazy. We just were afraid Shouldn’t we combine the two? And you know, you can just drive me crazy the one time? I can’t complain about my coworker to em, though. That’s true. I guess I could complain about the rest of our team, but it works really well. But most people don’t understand how we do this without going crazy.

Marlene Gebauer 15:20
Yeah, I mean, do you think it might have something to do with the fact that I mean, you guys have been a couple for a very long time and sort of pre all of this? And do you think that has an impact?

Jillian Bommarito 15:31
I do. I think that we’ve, we’ve basically grown up together, we’ve grown into who we are as adults, living shared experiences, both personally and building a business selling a business starting another business. Like we have all that background that we’ve shared, that we’ve learned from, and said, Okay, well, this time, we’re going to do XYZ. ABC worked really well. Let’s do that again.

Michael Bommarito 16:00
Yeah, it’s longitudinal, right? Like both the personal experiential stuff is longitudinal. And then the business stuff is longitudinal. Alright, so it’s like, all that stupid NBA kind of stuff. But like, actually, for real hair in terms of like, transfer of knowledge and enterprise and culture in Port, COEs and private Equity.

Jillian Bommarito 16:20
Are like children, the port code?

Michael Bommarito 16:23
I don’t know, maybe it’s generational. Generational leverage. It’s, it’s like the krobath pyramid here, except we don’t have them billing yet. Is that where you’re going? We do have a family farm that we could operate them under at different minor. Yep. Well, each restrictions so there’s a lot of flexibility.

Marlene Gebauer 16:42
I think it’s 11. Oh, okay.

Michael Bommarito 16:45
That’s where the dangerous equipment, but I always want to get on the tractor. All right. Got off to 11 no matter what.

Greg Lambert 16:53
Yeah, that’s true. So well, let me shift gears a little bit and talk. And I think this probably goes across both the personal and the business side of things working close together, there’s, you know, there’s got to be some things that you don’t necessarily agree 100% with each other on how to go forward. What do you do to successfully manage a situation where you may not agree on how to proceed with some change that you want to do? I get my way. There we go. Just get that that’s when you pull off the CRO card. And it’s like, no, yeah.

Michael Bommarito 17:32
I mean, the blessing and curse of all of this, right, is that you end up in a lot of these Socratic situations where there’s a lot of consensus, but in across the team, or like, even with Dan Katz to, like, all of us will be on these calls. And we’re just kind of used to debating and arguing and that Socratic style in a lot of ways, and that’s how decision making,

Jillian Bommarito 17:58
I mean, he works. He’s been, he’s been part of the relationship for a long time.

Michael Bommarito 18:03
11 years right? So like, it was just as odd as longitude and so you’re like to say that we are like, we just basically get on the phone or get in person and and talk and yell and argue about all this stuff. Just like families is basically what we do and here’s chilled trying to are just trying to silence Flack. So this is like, again, to that point, that’s awesome. Talking with each other on this stuff.

Greg Lambert 18:30
Well, and Dan’s wife is part of the company as well, right? Yeah. Okay.

Michael Bommarito 18:35
It really has some of those elements of like, the traditional family business, other than we’re not importing parmesan or something like that, right? We’re like trying to build Large Language Models and agents and legal and all this stuff. So it’s okay, it has many similarities and then some rather notable

Marlene Gebauer 18:52
Say no Parmesan on the farm.

Jillian Bommarito 18:54
I mean, no, Mike is also just mad because after we sold like, he wanted to buy water buffalo and start a was officer at business, which

Michael Bommarito 19:04
was like much before that. Yeah, it’s just researched. No, I’ve always wanted that like, Buffalo mozzerella. Water buffalo herd. Like that was what I want to do. Really? So like all this AI and legal stuff. Whatever. That’s my

Greg Lambert 19:20
You’re just marking time until you can get to that herd of water buffalo.

Michael Bommarito 19:26
Okay, and for the record here, this is Damian who won’t stop talking. Hi, Damien. When are you on this next?

Marlene Gebauer 19:35
Well, I gotta say, like, I’m pretty high on seaweed farms. Like I think that’s I think those are great. So yeah, that’s my thing.

Michael Bommarito 19:41
If you’re in Canada Bay of Fundy. Yeah. Yeah. Get up there next Saturday. Have a bunch. Yeah, that next time to know. All right.

Marlene Gebauer 19:51
I don’t know. I feel it. I go ahead. Go ahead. Sorry. Sorry.

Jillian Bommarito 19:53
I guess I assume you have to cut like 95% of what Mike said.

Greg Lambert 19:58
No, we’re keeping it all in

Michael Bommarito 20:00
I know the fun part, right? If you don’t get people who are, well, you know what temperatures are in language models. This is like one of the family jokes now, right? It’s like, I’m like when you dial the temperature up a little bit too high. Like I’m that model,

Jillian Bommarito 20:13
and I’m the moderation layer struggling to keep up.

Greg Lambert 20:18
Well, at least you’re not speaking Spanish like ChatGPT. Did earlier this week got stuck this week?

Michael Bommarito 20:23
Yeah. I don’t know, happens to the best of us after a couple of drinks, I guess. They’re supposed to have a little bit more reliable deployment strategy.

Greg Lambert 20:33
So now, we talked a lot about how you guys balance the lights? Well, let me actually appear one thing in there. Because we had this with Chris Ford and Nikki shaver was talking about if they have to travel because they have children. There’s an issue with, you know, childcare with having three kids there. You guys. I know you work from home. But if you have to go somewhere,

Marlene Gebauer 20:57
And you both have to go to the same thing. Throw them in the Airstream.

Greg Lambert 21:01
There we go. All right, we should give that as a suggestion to Chris and Nikki. In New York. It’s probably bigger than their New York apartment.

Michael Bommarito 21:11
Yeah, I was gonna say the 25 footer would cost a pretty penny to store in the city. Yeah, take it across the bridge. I don’t think you can take it through the tunnel. Tunnels don’t allow trailers that way. Anyway. Well, I’ll ask her next time

Marlene Gebauer 21:24
Park it under the GW Yeah.

Greg Lambert 21:28
Well, here’s the question that I’ve been anxious to ask. And it’s not so much about the couple, but more about what you guys are working on together. Michael, I’ve been watching you post things on LinkedIn and other places where you’re doing some really interesting things with the Kelvin, Large Language Models that you guys have developed. It’s, I think you’re calling it like a clean data model. Very interesting. So you guys, tell us a little bit about some of the cool things that that you’re playing with now?

Michael Bommarito 22:01
Sure. I mean, it’s, it’s actually about a couple thing to I’ll work at all here together. So Right. Joe is one of the world’s first certified AI auditors, like two years ago.

Greg Lambert 22:13
Explain that.

Jillian Bommarito 22:14
Yeah. I mean, so yeah, I guess it was years. Two years ago, I saw

Greg Lambert 22:20
AI didn’t exist two years ago,

Michael Bommarito 22:22
It was new. Yeah. At least for most AI experts that didn’t exist until November 22. Right.

Jillian Bommarito 22:28
I started an organization that was starting a, essentially an AI audit regimes. At this point, their body of knowledge is very immense. It’s called for humanity. And the idea was establishing an audit regime for auditing, AI systems. And they go through different definitions and stuff, in terms of bias in terms of explainability. What else did I mean?

Michael Bommarito 22:56
It’s like, it’s like an audit standard, right? It’s like there’s a whole bunch of stuff, you’re supposed to go through and collect evidence and then eventually attest to or not on this. It was weird at the time, because you were in this backwater, where not a lot of people understood AI and then audits this really boring then and then like, now you’re gonna

Jillian Bommarito 23:12
coming from tax, I’m used to people being bored by what I do.

Greg Lambert 23:16
I was gonna say that it sounds like it dovetailed nicely to your your big four work. Right?

Jillian Bommarito 23:22
Yeah, you know, thinking about compliance and risk, generally, this kind of fit nicely into it. And I, I went into it thinking, not necessarily that I was going to start doing these audits, but just for my own understanding, to have a way of knowing that, what we’re building now that we’re kind of doing things the right way, and that we are documenting things, so that we do have that explainability for why we’ve made decisions and how we’ve trained the model, the data that we’ve used, all of those kinds of things that often don’t get thought about kind of across multiple areas, they’re usually very siloed. In the technical team, maybe legal takes a review of things too late. Apparently, lately, we’re seeing Yeah, at some point in time. So kind of like Mike was saying, this really is the couple thing, my background with sort of the risks from a compliance perspective, and from a contractual perspective, doing all these deep dives in what’s allowed under the different models that are out there, what’s covered for indemnification and stuff. And that’s a whole different. It’s a whole favorite app that I won’t even go down. But all of that has really, I think, worked nicely with what Mike’s been developing, because at every single step along the way, we can stop and have conversations about the decisions that were being made. And it’s a really conscious, purposeful decision that we’re making about how

Michael Bommarito 24:56
and that’s basically the differentiation in some sense. It’s because I guarantee you None of the other major model providers started with that mentality in the room. And that’s like kind of the problem that we’re seeing evidenced in a lot of the litigation or the issues that show up in public fora is there was a technical team that did a lot of really hard technical work. And then a couple years later, when these things kicked off commercially, and people started care about what came out the other end of this generation, somebody said, Hey, that looks like toxic or copyrighted, or hallucinated generation, can we fix that? And then you’re like, all of these sins of technical choices and data and all? Well, they accumulated and there’s a cost of going back.

Greg Lambert 25:36
You know, that reminds me, I was listening to a podcast this morning, that was talking with the CEO of Google’s Deep Mind division. And one of the things that he pointed out was there’s and he really kind of, I think, placed it into two camps. And that was, there’s the startup mentality of break things in, you know, and move on. He was saying that his model was better because they’re using more of a scientific model. Yeah, to do things. But it sounds like there may be a third way on it with this kind of audit structure that you’re talking about in my Am I kind of looking at that and

Marlene Gebauer 26:17
like an ethical,

Michael Bommarito 26:18
ethical build. Yeah. And it’s almost like ethics is complicated, right? There isn’t a single ethical or normative framework has moral relativism, and people and federalism evidences that anyway, right, so like, leave that global ethical thing aside, there’s just kind of like, the waffle or legal version of this, which is if you follow the contracts, and you follow the statutes, what would you do or not do. And in some cases, like, one of the things and I know everybody kind of is seeing Google’s made some choices, and those choices are probably going to be the right choices, on average, over the next decade given policy. Maybe they messed up something on the edge of it here or there to start, but like, these general purpose models are going to need to be acceptable for public use. On the other hand, if I’m taking a law and a rule, and I’m building the model, you do not want me touching that, right? Like you don’t want me D biasing a model by changing names and genders and stuff, and the laws and rules they need to be entered on adulthood. Whereas what DeepMind and Google are doing with building a model that’s maybe more fair, whatever is hopefully going to work out better than their first release. And that is probably what is needed for policy. If AI is going to be allowed writ large. In the legal domain, we need to not touch the training data, the training data is the law. The model provider should not be messing with that. And if the model provider is selling a model to a law firm, well, it probably shouldn’t be infringing on third party rights, because that’s generally frowned upon. So like, if you just follow the contract, the average software license agreement, the reps and warranties and the back of that agreement, and you say, build a model where you can actually knowingly sign this thing and not worry about the indemnification or liability provisions. That’s what we’ve done.

Greg Lambert 28:13
We talked a lot about what would the cool stuff that Jill’s doing, Mike, I saw some interaction with the contracts in Word, I’ve seen a reference to the banana development or from Arrested Development. So what are what are some things that you’re doing with the LLM that you’re finding? Very interesting right now.

Michael Bommarito 28:39
I mean, all of that kind of right is like we’re all at this, this tip of this, like we are at least our organization’s kind of the tip of the spear of what you can do with these things. And obviously, we’re trying to bring things to market that are useful for people. And so some of what we’ve been showing lately is like normal agreements that everybody has doing normal diligence checklists, here’s a million words in a deal room, go find the employee who’s got a bonus that’s different than the others very run of the mill stop. On the other hand, there’s a version that where he imagined Well, what if the agent will work on kind of this, like, autonomous party or actor was able to figure out the checklist from scratch and to go through the whole deal room in draft, and demo, the diligence report, but the risks and then like, maybe propose revisions to the FPGA. Based on the risks in the memo it found, I don’t think anybody’s ready for that clearly from a cost plus billable model, nobody’s ready to sell that downstream is that has pretty clear implications for associates and stuff like that at the bottom of the pyramid. But that’s like, this stuff I’m excited about now, in addition to just the idea that we can build a large language model that runs on a laptop. That is from a pure technical perspective, I think about as a kid when I first like, wrote off Fortran, two layer neural network. I don’t know. It all seems unreal when you back up for a second and think about it.

Greg Lambert 30:08
Is that Damien still coming through on [SLACK]?

Michael Bommarito 30:12
No, it’s one of our interns who’s working on more training data to teach our model to do cool stuff.

Marlene Gebauer 30:18
I can’t we can’t we can’t see anything.

Greg Lambert 30:25
Well, well, Michael is taking care of the sick child.

Michael Bommarito 30:28
Maybe you just wanted more French fries, he must be feeling better.

Marlene Gebauer 30:32
Okay, that’s good. That’s good. wanting food is a definite sign. So yeah, yep. Well, we’ll we’ll I know you guys have to deal with some stuff over there. So we’ll kind of wrap it up with the like, we normally have our crystal ball question, but we’re calling this our Valentine question. What advice? Would you give another couple who are considering, you know, working in the same field or working together in the same business? And maybe, maybe, I don’t know. I don’t even know what to start with.

Jillian Bommarito 31:03
I don’t think there’s an answer.

Michael Bommarito 31:06
I might give some hard advice, which is don’t do it unless you really think you can. That’s like, that’s the truth of it. Right is, and the only way you probably know if you can is if you spend time together. Yeah. So it’s not like an easy answer. Because it just means Wait, if you haven’t spent a long time together. That is probably my advice.

Greg Lambert 31:24
That reminds me of Sonja Ebron. Sonja had said don’t do it just because you like each other do it because there’s a real solid reason for it. So it sounds like that’s kind of in line with that. So Jill, would any any advice you have for a couple of for a couple that would come up to you and ask?

Jillian Bommarito 31:42
Honestly, I feel like if back to the newlywed game, I would have held up the same card. It’s a very all consuming thing to do. Because some of the biggest aspects of your life are together Oh, Mangle. And if you do want to do it, and you go into it, kind of like Mike said, knowing what you’re getting into. It’s been amazing for us, I’m really thankful that we’ve been able to do this. And I think it’s been really cool for our kids to see us doing this, you know, building companies together and working together to move forward. And you know, like we talked about earlier to solve problems that come up. It’s kind of like just finding a business partner in general, like you don’t know if your co founder is going to be the right fit unless you really know them. And in a lot of cases, I think people don’t necessarily have the, I guess the, like they’re not lucky enough to be able to have that person be their partner, partner life partner in both says, like the worst tagline. Yeah, I’m sorry for that. But if you can find somebody who you can do that, it’s, it can be a really, really rewarding experience.

Greg Lambert 33:06
All right, well, Michael and Julian Bommarito, of 273 Ventures, and I’m sure the soon to be upcoming Buffalo Mozzerella Company,

Jillian Bommarito 33:16
If Mike has his way.

Greg Lambert 33:20
Well, I want to thank both of you for taking the time to come on The Geek in Review and share your love and legal tech stories. So thank you,

Marlene Gebauer 33:28
Thank you for coming by. And of course, thanks to all of you, our listeners for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoy the show, share it with a colleague, we’d love to hear from you. So reach out to us on social media. I can be found on LinkedIn or on X at @gebauerm and on threads at @mgebauer66.

Greg Lambert 33:47
And I can be reached on LinkedIn or on X at @glambert. On Threads, you can reach out to me at @glambertpod. Jillian and Michael, if people want to learn more about 273 Ventures and the two of you who would wish they go?

Michael Bommarito 34:02
I don’t know. Don’t reach out to us. Right, but 273ventures.com. Or it’s probably easiest to get us on LinkedIn these days.

Greg Lambert 34:12
I would just have to take a screenshot of Jill’s reaction to that. Yeah. Jill, do you want? Do you want to give the answer?

Jillian Bommarito 34:19
I mean, I think if you’re talking about your company, maybe the answer shouldn’t be don’t talk to.

273Ventures.com and Kelvin.Legal. And on LinkedIn. You can see Mike’s high jinks and my risk assessments of things.

Marlene Gebauer 34:41
Very good. And the custom composed Love and Legal Tech music that you hear for this series is from Jerry David DeCicca and Eve Searls. Thank you both.

Greg Lambert 34:51
Yeah. Thanks, Jerry and Eve. All right. Thanks, everybody.

Dan Lear delves into the transformative impact of artificial intelligence (AI) in the legal industry. While AI dominated previous discussions with a mix of fear and fascination, Lear suggests the narrative is shifting towards practical integration and utility. The conversation reflects on the cyclical hype surrounding AI, with speculation on whether the legal sector has reached or surpassed its peak AI moment. Lear posits that the real value of AI will unfold as it becomes more embedded in legal workflows, transforming efficiency rather than replacing legal professionals outright.

InfoTrack’s role and offerings in the legal tech space receive a detailed exploration. Lear explains how InfoTrack serves primarily small to medium-sized law firms, facilitating more efficient litigation support through integrated cloud-based solutions. He underscores the challenge and opportunity in educating and transitioning firms to embrace digital practices for docketing and court filings, emphasizing InfoTrack’s mission to expand electronic access to court services for the betterment of legal accessibility and efficiency.

Lear further discusses the demands and dynamics of InfoTrack’s clientele, identifying a trend towards specialization and business acumen within law firms. He predicts that technology will play a pivotal role in enabling firms to succeed by enhancing client acquisition, service delivery, and operational efficiency. The conversation underscores a broader industry evolution towards recognizing and leveraging technology not just for the sake of innovation, but as a strategic asset to differentiate and thrive in a competitive landscape.

Concluding the episode, Lear reflects on the future trajectory of the legal industry and InfoTrack’s place within it. He envisions a legal sector increasingly shaped by technological advancements, where AI and digital platforms streamline processes and redefine the nature of legal work. Through Lear’s insights, the episode offers a compelling snapshot of the current state and exciting prospects of legal technology, highlighting the continuous journey towards more accessible, efficient, and innovative legal services.

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠

Contact Us: 

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads: @glambertpod or @gebauerm66
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠ and Eve Searls

Transcript:

Marlene Gebauer 0:07
Welcome to The Geek in Review. The podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal profession. I’m Marlene Gebauer,

Greg Lambert 0:14
And I’m Greg Lambert. And we are still at legal week. Four we haven’t left yet. Although it’s getting closer. Yes, yeah. So we I went out onto the, into the vendor Hall and in and ran into Dan Lear. InfoTrack is the VP of partnerships there. And he was gracious enough to come on down and talk with us. So, Dan, welcome to The Geek in Review.

Dan Lear 0:42
Hey, thanks, Greg. And Marlene, it’s really a pleasure to be with you. I went really hard on karaoke last night so my voice is a

Greg Lambert 0:51
little I did that on on Tuesday night, man.

Dan Lear 0:53
It was amazing. It was so very fun.

Marlene Gebauer 0:57
What’s your go to song?

Dan Lear 1:00
Honestly, as hard as I went last night, it’s really funny that I haven’t done it a lot. But I think Adam cameras one of my colleagues actually want Wanted Dead or Alive by Bon Jovi is probably that’s a tough one. My my second, which I didn’t get to know. But I did have on the queue was, which I think is what I got to do. This one again, is shocked me all night long by AC DC.

Greg Lambert 1:24
That’s a crowd please.

Dan Lear 1:25
Yes.

Greg Lambert 1:26
Marlene, what’s your go to?

Marlene Gebauer 1:29
Probably hit me with your best shot.

Greg Lambert 1:30
Yeah, that’s a good,

Dan Lear 1:31
That’s a good one. And

Greg Lambert 1:32
then, typically, I do love Shaq, because I can I can, I can usually get like two or three women to come up and sing along and they have the hard part.

Dan Lear 1:43
Yeah. And you just sit back there and go.

Greg Lambert 1:48
Although if I do it by myself, then I will go to hot blooded from foreigner. Also, that’s also fantastic. Can’t go wrong with the you know, 70s class. Yeah.

Dan Lear 1:58
Yeah, just a tinge of sort of want to say cheese. But like, yeah, there’s

Greg Lambert 2:04
a tinge. Yeah, there’s a lot.

Dan Lear 2:07
Yeah, but it’s, it’s but yeah, it lands in a great way. These days.

Greg Lambert 2:12
Oh, well, then.

Marlene Gebauer 2:14
I was gonna say So Dan, like other than carry on. You know, how has your experience?

Dan Lear 2:19
Is there a show?

Marlene Gebauer 2:21
Or anything else? How is your experience been here at att legal week? You know, what are what are your some of your takeaways? Yeah, my voice.

Dan Lear 2:29
Yeah. It’s, it’s been really interesting. So I have not been to this show. I think the last one I came to was actually the January right before the pandemic. So that’s, that’s just generally been interesting. I think we’re all sort of reemerging from this weird. last few years, um, takeaways. So? I mean, I think one of the things that that, that most people have commented on that I think is fairly interesting is there seems to be a much greater breadth of technologies here. I think. And, and, and just ediscovery anymore. Yeah. Which, again, this show, I think, got maybe an unfair rap, kind of, for being just an ediscovery show. So I think that’s been really interesting. I think, and I think, honestly, just to extrapolate that out a little bit, I think it’s a really interesting testament to, I think, technology that is like, finally kind of coming to the legal sector. And I guess, kind of to take that one step further. This is something I’ve been paying moderate attention to. I feel like there’s a lot more people in finance here, like, evaluating looking at thinking about investing in these technologies, which I don’t, didn’t feel to me like was, which seems really obvious being in New York, but to me didn’t feel like it was as prevalent in years past when I’ve been here. Maybe I just pay more attention to you. And maybe I know who those people are. Because on occasion, I’ve had conversations with them. But

Marlene Gebauer 4:04
I think I think that’s an area that’s gaining popularity, and I probably shouldn’t mention other conferences, while we’re here at legal week. But there are other conferences that are devoted specifically to that sort of bringing, you know, bringing buyers, developers and investors together.

Greg Lambert 4:20
We had an entire show about that. Exactly. Oh, interest.

Dan Lear 4:24
No. So I think I think that’s, I think that’s an interesting thing that’s happened, but I think the and of course, of course, AI you know, last year we were scared now we’re like leaning in and super engaged. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next year. Yeah, it almost we’ve been joking. And I’ve had a few conversations sort of, are we have we reached the end or are we past peak AI in legal but it’s certainly everywhere. You know, at this show?

Marlene Gebauer 4:56
Yeah. All I’m keeping hearing everyone’s like, Yeah, I think we’re at the peak or sort of going down into the trough. off. And so I think that’s what everybody’s sort of saying, well, and

Dan Lear 5:03
to be clear, and I don’t want to turn the microphone back on you guys, let me let me start. I think this is when it actually gets interesting, right? Because now it’s permeated right now they’ve really sold it. Like people we end up doing with this stuff. Like, that’s when I think stuff can start to get really interesting.

Greg Lambert 5:23
Now you have to actually have have something to show totally and do work around. is not about talking anymore. It’s about doing

Dan Lear 5:30
Absolutely, yeah. It’s not about just sort of adding AI to your name or putting it on your domain. It’s like, okay, now you got to stop.

Greg Lambert 5:38
She didn’t have that AI is, is your new name. And your Yep. Well, for listeners who may not know about InfoTrack. Given the kind of a high level overview of what you do, and who your customer base is. A have the wrist radio that

Dan Lear 6:26
I know. Again, like it’s crazy how this works, right. But I sort of I got the apple or Apple Watch. Yeah, I got the Apple Watch. And I’m realizing like this. This is like more than Dick Tracy. Right. And that seemed like so cool back.

Greg Lambert 8:59
Yeah. One of the new ones too.

Dan Lear 9:01
It’s a year old. Yeah, yeah. That’s yeah, this is not the I have any thoughts about the Apple Watch? This is not that podcast, unless of course you want it to be. But it’s yeah, it’s insane.

Marlene Gebauer 9:14
So I mean, it’s interesting with the docket services, because you know, there’s so many sort of online, kind of docket retrieval, like you basically can kind of, sorry, you basically can go and get it online. But I mean, there’s still a number of jurisdictions where, you know, you can’t get that or maybe certain things that you can’t get. So, you know, is that something you’re considering to in terms of sort of offering that kind of online support

Dan Lear 9:39
Gor courts in which it’s not available online yet?

Marlene Gebauer 9:43
Sure.

Dan Lear 9:44
So it’s, that’s a super interesting question. The short answer is we still have a lot of work to do in terms of just covering the courts that do offer online so that’s like step one is like for those where it is available, let’s like currently, I think our docketing product is only available in New York. work, New Jersey and I think Georgia, and there are many more states that would enable us to do if we want to do. So that’s step one is like, let’s just get the places that are easy, like, you know, the low hanging fruit. Beyond that. You know, it’s a fun question Marlene, and where I also where I often like to go is maybe too far into the future. But you know, one of the things that I really am excited about working at InfoTrack is, and I think, again, your audience in YouTube will probably agree is like, all of this stuff should be electronic. Like, there’s just no reason for it not to be. And again, if I can, ever so briefly get on my soapbox, I think the more it becomes electronic, the greater access, we’re able to provide to not only the legal profession, but the public in general, which I think is like a net positive for our society. So like, that’s the, you know, that’s the part that kind of gets me jazzed. But part of what we’re really working to do is not only kind of encourage courts who either have electronic filing or electronic dockets available to enact sensible rules around how people can access them and make them available to folks like us, as well as others. So that’s kind of step one, but also like to encourage those courts who don’t currently have it to bring them online. So that was a little, I still didn’t answer your question, I sort of

Marlene Gebauer 11:23
That’s alright, we always tell people to answer the question you want.

Dan Lear 11:29
We do in some cases, and I mean, I may be telling tales out of school, but I’m pretty sure this is true. In some cases where. And I yeah, I would love for us to see, let me put it this way. And I should caveat all this by saying I’m relatively new enroll, I just started this job in November. So there’s still pieces of the business I’m learning. I do believe that we can, in some cases, initiate physical filing kind of through that electronic portal. So like in some courts, we can, again, like the service of process piece, basically send a message out to like a courier service, who then delivers filings physically. So we do do that. I think. I think for us, it’s about a getting that low hanging fruit of folks, you know, of courts who either are just coming online in terms of E filing, or are already and don’t have the greatest rules or seem inclined to move in that direction. It’s about either working with them, or encouraging them to move in the right direction. Instead of you know, I mean, we could, we could absolutely build out a much more sophisticated kind of ground game, if you will, right, that handles all of the physical filing for all of these different places. But I think ultimately, again, kind of going back to my, my more sort of accessing note, We’d rather see those courts come into the digital age. And so kind of pushing them that way is probably where we’d be investing our resources. But we do do that from time to time.

Greg Lambert 13:01
So your customer base, you know, what’s, what’s kind of the average? How’s your customer?

Dan Lear 13:07
Yeah, and you ask that question earlier

Greg Lambert 13:09
that’s fine. But I also want to build on that, you know, what are some of the demands that you’re seeing from customers? Now and 2024, whether it’s coming up to the booth and talk to you or, you know, shoot me an email? So what which customer look like, and what are they kind of asking you to do for them now.

Dan Lear 13:32
So customers for us tend to be a little bit on the smaller side. That’s more to some degree by choice. The way we’ve decided to build the business is just to focus on kind of that small to medium sized law firm segment.

Greg Lambert 13:48
And how would you define that?

Dan Lear 13:50
I mean, we have firms everywhere from solos on up to firms of about 100 people. So yeah, like the super well, I don’t know, yeah, much bigger than that. And kind of to just drill down there. Those firms don’t tend to use the systems with which we, you know, kind of cloud based systems, which with which we often integrate. So I think that’s kind of one piece. And then I think that just like, from a business perspective, we’ve just chosen not to sort of be patient enough to wait through those sales cycles, at least not right now. Again, it’s just a decision, I think, at some point, and I think there definitely needs on that level as well. We’ve just kind of chosen to focus. I think the I think the other thing is personal injury, family, probate, all of those tend to be with firms that are a little bit kind of on the smaller side, right. So that’s also I think, the and those are the those are the those are the a large majority of the filings, right? And so kind of the overlap of all those pieces is sort of how to spot because they’re your second question was,

Greg Lambert 15:04
what are the client demands?

Dan Lear 15:05
What are they asking for? Um, so honestly, it’s it’s really interesting for many of these firms, and integrated kind of litigation support offering, this is like the first time they’re really experiencing this. And so honestly, like, a lot of them, I would say our bigger challenges are like, Hey, you should be doing it this way, instead of leaving your practice management system and going to, you know, either initiate service a process manually over the phone, or like, filing your, you know, your case electronically in the court, like, truly that’s, like, helping them understand the benefits of what we’re doing, I think is still like a really big part of the work that we’re doing. And, and honestly, like, it’s pretty remarkable. How much and I’m like, I’m not trying to over

Marlene Gebauer 16:08
well, no, I mean, I think I think that’s a real well, for everybody. And like, how do you manage that change management conversation?

Dan Lear 16:18
This fellow use a little bit of a different, wasn’t crass was crass. But it wasn’t a cuss word. But we had somebody come up to our booth at a conference a few months ago, who said, Hey, I just went and use your electronic filing portal. He’s like, it’s like the best thing I’ve ever heard. He was like, like, ecstatic about the experience. And again, I’m not trying to sell us here. I’m just saying, like, I don’t think that people are conditioned to think of things as endless. I mean, let’s be honest. Also, this is one of the hurdles we run into as well. In some cases, lawyers built for this time, or legal professionals built for this time, right. So to some degree, weren’t weren’t, were making things more efficient, were arguably kind of going counter to their incentives. But yeah, kind of step one is just like opening people’s eyes and helping them see this kind of what do I think that they want? Or, honestly, it’s really more of a conversation of like, what do we think they should want. And that sounds a little bit arrogant, but like, the vision we have is that our workflow and the way that people use us in practice management system is still very disjointed in a practice management system is still very disjointed. So we’d love to figure out a way to make it more immersive to make it more natural to make it easier. Just so that, like, it’s, it’s more obvious. So that a lot of the things I mean, again, you know, when when practice management first emerged on the scene, well, now, I mean, let’s talk just cloud based because that’s, that’s a tree with which I’m familiar. I don’t go that far back in the legal sector. You know, it was just radical to have Time and Billing. And now you know, now there’s documents. Now there’s calendaring. Now, there’s email integration, and all that stuff, just feel so comfortable. And we want to get to a place where like, it’s just second nature that you can go into one of these systems and expect that you can file electronically and maybe not even know that info trackers on the back end.

Greg Lambert 18:18
Do you want to do crystal ball or you got other questions? All right. Well, before we get to the crystal ball, is there anything that that we haven’t asked you that you’d want to talk about?

Dan Lear 18:28
Um no, I would just say I have, I’m familiar with the podcast. I think it’s fantastic. I love what you guys are doing. I love that there are people out there talking about this stuff. So I just wanted to give you a pat on the back for the work that you’re doing. And thank you for for letting me here, even though we’re not even done. But that was, ya know, it’s been a pleasure.

Marlene Gebauer 18:56
All right, it’s great. Well, so we do ask everybody the crystal ball questions. So if you’re a listener, you know, you know, they do indeed. And so sort of, you know, taking your crystal ball and looking in the next two to four years, you know, what are some things you see in terms of trends or challenges or changes that we’re going to see in the industry?

Dan Lear 19:22
So let’s see, what’s the best. I mean, I’m trying to decide whether to do AI first or last. I think we’ll start with AI. So I, I think it is going to become like email. Not from the perspective of like, I think it will probably have, ultimately a pretty significant impact on on the way we work, but maybe not in the way that we think like I just don’t I for a variety of reasons. I just don’t think it’s ever going to like replace legal professionals people can’t see me vendu Unlike the air quotes, I just I, like lawyers have and legal professionals have existed for for time immemorial. And I think they, they always will, for a whole wide variety of reasons, I just don’t think I think it’s going to be a really, really long time before any of that makes any sense. But I do think like, you know, the speed at which we get things done, the speed at which we communicate the speed with which we are expected to respond, as legal professionals has increased dramatically with the introduction of new technologies, and it’s not even speed as so much of its efficiency, right, the way that we do things. There are very, very, very, so I started my legal career as a, as a records filing clerk in a large law firm in Seattle, Washington, which is where I live. And there was a fairly, and this fellow wasn’t even that old, then. He’s like, in his 50s, which again, to me, doesn’t seem old anymore. But he says, and this is like 2001 2002, he would, he would receive emails, his secretary would print them out, he would hand write responses, and then she would put them back into the so kind of along those lines, I don’t think there are too many lawyers hand drafting their you know their briefs anymore, maybe they do, because they like it. But like, you know, there’s just much more efficient ways to do that. So I really see. I see it becoming, you know, a tool that again, like, if you’re, like super adept at word, you’re, you’re way more efficient and way more effective than your, you know, than your lawyer down the street or your lawyer from 30 years ago. But you know, it’s not doing the work for you. And so I really think that that’s sort of how we’re going to see kind of AI evolve. I think the other pieces that I am watching, I think there is my my, like, the practice of law, from my perspective is just is becoming more and more of a business. And I like nother podcast another time, we can talk about whether or not that’s a good thing, but I do think it relates to technology. And I’ll get there. And I say that in terms of the VA law firms, I think it has a few different impacts. The law firms that I see succeeding are those who know how to do certain things like specific, they specialize, like just to be very candid. And or they are like, very, very good at a lot of the business end of the profession, acquiring customers, servicing customers, marketing, running operations, that sort of thing. And I think what that means is, I think you’re going to see increasingly those firms succeed and grow. And a lot of the firm’s that either don’t have those skills or don’t have the sort of wherewithal to focus are not going to be as successful. That’s that’s sort of the the the, you know, if I look into the crystal ball, which, again, I think big picture is actually like, a pretty good thing. Really, for everyone involved, right? Yeah, no, I really do. And I think for a wide variety of reasons, I think it’s better for consumers. I think it’s better. I think it’s just better across the board. Kind of flipping that back on technology. I think that the the firm’s that are able to understand how they leverage technology to accomplish those goals. Again, whether it’s in the acquisition of customers, whether it’s in service of customers, whether it’s being more whether it’s being more efficient. I you know, that’s where kind of tying things back to what to what it is that we do. I think sometimes we worry like, Oh, we’re, you know, we’re forcing lawyers to do something that they wouldn’t want to do economically, or is it not in their economic best interest, because they can build for this time. But as I look into my crystal ball and look down the path, I just think, like, there are so many things that lawyers used to bill for, right, like handwriting things, you know, marking up those drafts, that now would not be reasonable since charges. Yeah, exactly. That now would not be a bill for so like, we are going to get to a place where those efficiencies naturally get cut out because a firm that is using some and again, I don’t want this to be an advertising for us. But a firm who is using something like InfoTrack and is able to move faster, and smarter about the way they deploy their resources, I think will ultimately be more successful. Awesome.

Greg Lambert 24:43
Well, Dan lair from InfoTrack, thank you very much for letting us grab you off the floor and sticking microphone in front of your face. So

Dan Lear 24:52
thanks. Thank you both so much for letting me hang out. It was really a pleasure.

Marlene Gebauer 24:56
This is fun. This is great. This is really good. So and thanks to all All of you, our listeners for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoy the show, share it with a colleague. We’d love to hear from you. So reach out to us on social media. I can be found on LinkedIn or X at @gebauerm, and on Threads at @mgebauer66.

Greg Lambert 25:15
And I can be reached on LinkedIn or on X at @glambert. So Dan, where if someone wanted to learn more either about you or INFOTRACK where’s the best place for them to look

Dan Lear 25:28
so infotrack.com very easy. And then as far as the technology, Marlene I’m very impressed that you still call it that you have managed to call it X not Twitter’s

Greg Lambert 25:38
It took us a while. I finally took it out of the scripts. So

Dan Lear 25:42
I’m on that I’m on that thing. I used to spend a ton of time there. I don’t as much anymore but I’m at @rightbrainlaw on on that platform. And then I’m on LinkedIn, Dan Lear, pretty easy to track down.

Marlene Gebauer 25:53
All right, very good. Thank you.

Dan Lear 25:54
Yeah, Thank you.

Marlene Gebauer 25:57
And as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David DeCicca Thank you.

Greg Lambert 26:01
Thanks. Thanks for not forgetting about Jerry.

Dan Lear 26:04
Thanks Jerry.

In the fourth round of interviews of “The Geek in Review” podcast’s mini-series “Love & Legal Tech,” hosts Greg Lambert and Marlene Gebauer chat with Chris Ford and Nikki Shaver, the dynamic couple behind the Legal Technology Hub. Their project, conceived out of necessity and frustration with the lack of a single source of truth for legal technology solutions, has grown into a thriving business that categorizes and reviews over 2000 legal tech products, aiding law firms and corporate legal departments in navigating the vast landscape of available technologies.

Their story begins in Australia, where Chris and Nikki first connected through a dating site, a testament to their adventurous spirits and willingness to embrace new technologies, even in their personal lives. This spirit of innovation and exploration carried over into their professional lives when they decided to tackle the challenge of creating a centralized platform for legal technology solutions during the pandemic. Their complementary skills in marketing, legal tech, and innovation have been crucial to their success, demonstrating the power of collaboration and mutual respect in both business and personal relationships.

Working together presents its challenges, notably in balancing professional demands with family life, as they navigate attending the same industry events while ensuring the wellbeing of their two children. Yet, it’s clear that their partnership strengthens both their business and their relationship, as they share a common goal and a deep understanding of each other’s strengths.

Chris and Nikki’s journey is a shining example for other couples in the legal tech industry, emphasizing the importance of shared vision, respect for each other’s expertise, and the willingness to support one another’s ideas, no matter how ambitious. Their advice for other couples looking to work together in the industry is to focus on their common goals and leverage their unique strengths, ensuring that their partnership is both professionally rewarding and personally fulfilling.

Their dedication to innovation, coupled with their strong relationship, showcases the potential for couples to make significant contributions to the legal tech industry while building a life together.

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠

Contact Us: 

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads: @glambertpod or @gebauerm66
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠ and Eve Searls

⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠Transcript

Marlene Gebauer 0:00
Well welcome to The Geek in Review the podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal profession. I I’m Marlene Gebauer. And

Greg Lambert 0:10
I’m Greg Lambert. So Marlene, this is take two for this episode because yes, we thought yesterday we would be creative and try to record in the same room, which has never worked before. But you know, that doesn’t stop us from thinking that it will work this time.

Chris Ford 0:28
So it has worked on occasion. It has worked, but lately it has not worked.

Greg Lambert 0:34
Yeah, well, the biggest thing was we did we get into a room that none of the power outlets worked. So that was first thing and then we ran to another room. And then it turned out we there was a misspelling in the in poor Nikki’s email. So she didn’t have this on her calendar, and we still couldn’t get get things going. So

Chris Ford 0:55
She was such a good sport are trying.

Nikki Shaver 0:59
So thankfully, until today, we’re

Greg Lambert 1:02
absolutely so. So for our love and legal tech feature we have with us today. Nikki shaver is the CEO and co founder of legal technology hub, and Chris Ford, legal marketing advisor and co founder of the legal technology hubs. So Chris, and Nikki, welcome to The Geek in Review.

Nikki Shaver 1:24
Thank you.

Chris Ford 1:25
Pleasure to be here.

Greg Lambert 1:27
And as everyone knows, we’re using a pretty broad definition of legal tech. But I think our guest today kind of just fit right into that little niche of legal technology. So let me let me start off. Nikki, can you describe exactly what it is that you and you and Chris do in the legal tech field?

Nikki Shaver 1:51
Sure. So we, together with our co founder, founder you ruin plink and our team, we run legal tech hub, which is a one stop shop for law firms and corporate legal departments to get information about all of the legal technology solutions around the world as well as tools and resources to help them evaluate the market and run internal projects to procure and implement legal technology. And so that is a project that Chris and I initially started back in 2020 during the pandemic, but which is now a really viable and growing and thriving business, which we’re very excited about.

Greg Lambert 2:34
Chris, you got anything to add, add to that? That was pretty quick.

Chris Ford 2:38
It was pretty quick. But she’s she’s done that before. It started as a passion project, as Nicky said, as of you know, I won’t speak for her. But when she was a Paul Hastings in a in a senior innovation role. It was, you know, a constant source of frustration that she wasn’t able to go to one single source of truth for, for, you know, all the different legal technology solutions that were out there. And one day, one evening, after dinner after yet another day of zoom calls. She said why don’t we build this? And I said, why hasn’t someone else? And then we started building it. And we realized, this is why it’s really, really hard to find them all.

Greg Lambert 3:21
If it was easy, everyone would have done it wrong.

Chris Ford 3:24
Right? That’s right. Right. So how did the two of you meet?

Nikki Shaver 3:32
One? No, I know you want to take this one.

Chris Ford 3:35
Yeah, we met the old fashioned way through a dating site. This was in the water bout 13. And something years ago, back in Australia. It would the internet dating thing wasn’t as ubiquitous as it is now. And it was sort of emerging from the shadows. And we were almost early adopters. We went on a very popular mainstream dating site and and found each other. There. Yeah,

Nikki Shaver 4:06
I a friend of mine told me I actually was thinking of moving from Australia to New York at the time. And she said well, before you leave, maybe just throw exactly what you’re looking for online. And I did so and within one week found Chris which was amazing.

Chris Ford 4:26
Yeah, I also Nikki was the first person I met through online dating.

Nikki Shaver 4:31
Untrue. He was the only person I met online.

Greg Lambert 4:39
But he said he said it was such a straight face.

Chris Ford 4:42
So Sincere. Wow.

Greg Lambert 4:45
So I know in the states we have, you know, like farmers only.com. Was this was this legal tech only.com. Is that what this was?

Nikki Shaver 4:54
Yeah, that’s right. The Australian legal tech dating site. No, actually at the time, neither of us were in legal Tech. Well, Chris actually had a line in his profile that it was a quote from the movie Anchorman. And he had written underneath it. Brownie points, anyone who can tell me where this quote is from, and he had connected with me or whatever, in a way that made it feasible for me to write back to him. And it just appealed to my competitive spirit. I knew the answer, so I had to tell him. So he got me that way.

Chris Ford 5:40
Yeah. And look, we connected, because we both have, like, extremely international upbringings. And, you know, we wanted to have a sense of compatibility in that way. And yeah, Nikki, was born in the Netherlands grew up in Germany, I grew up in Southeast Asia, we both have a strong North American background as well. So yeah, we, we clicked instantly.

Greg Lambert 6:08
So how did you guys end up working in the same area? Because I know you’ve been kind of I know, You’ve been doing this in the background, but you’ve kind of kind of been working together longer than that, right? Yeah, well, well, I’m saying,

Nikki Shaver 6:27
Yeah, I had. I have been a lawyer in Australia for many years. And and then when we decided the two of us decided to move to Canada, actually, initially, with our kids, because both of our brothers lived in North America, and both had kids and we wanted the cousins all to know each other. So we moved in, I kind of fell into the field of legal tech and cam and innovation, almost accidentally. It’s while I was re qualifying to be a lawyer. It’s the job I got as a contract gig was with one of the large firms in Canada. At a time when I didn’t know what legal tech even was. An amazingly I mean, I mean, I really met some of the people that I’m closest to now. In the world I met Carla swans Berg, who’s now that clear YECs. Simon warm Well, who’s that? Oh, sir Kate Simpson, who’s at Bennett Jones, worked with all of them work from the get go on an enterprise search project on an intranet project, and immediately just absolutely loved it. And so I’ve stayed in that field ever since. And Chris was in general marketing. And I always used to say, wouldn’t it be great if you were in one field and marketing instead of sort of marketing agnostic, which is what he used to say in terms of industries. And interestingly, over all the jobs you’ve had Chris in marketing, there was this weird even though he doesn’t come from a legal background, a theme of working for legal environments or lead legal companies in some way or another throughout his career. But it hadn’t you hadn’t actually decided on that, particularly Chris, right. until much later.

Chris Ford 8:19
Yeah, I worked on the periphery of legal technology in its various sales and marketing jobs, starting with LexisNexis in Sydney, actually. And then, when we moved to Canada, and Nikki’s half Canadian, that’s how we got a permanent residency. And the first job I had there was LexisNexis, Canada. And when we moved to New York with Nicki’s job, I was working with axiom. And then from there, I, you know, became the CMO at zero, which is a legal technology company. So, you know, I, I’ve not quite fell into it, but decided that you know, that this is a, an industry where I wanted to build a bit of a career and this is what brought me to this point.

Nikki Shaver 9:04
Yeah, it was when we moved to New York that really, when Chris then started working in legal Tech, I think we realized there were great benefits to us both being in the field and he loved it. And I loved it. And it made sense for both of us to stay in.

Greg Lambert 9:25
Well, I asked him about being in the same profession.

Chris Ford 9:28
Oh, you did already? I’m sorry. I thought well, I fell off because I lost connection. So sorry. So what, what’s been the most challenging thing about being in the same profession? I mean, obviously, there’s really lots of really good things. But you know, Chris, you know, what do you think is the most challenging thing?

Childcare? We have a 10 year old and a 12 year old now and you know, it’s necessary that both of us go to iltacon It’s but necessary the both of us you know, are have a legal week. And then, you know, at social events they’re in. And we’ll both be going to clock. And while we took the kids to Orlando last year to alter, and, you know, that worked out beautifully. It’s it’s a bit of a challenge for us. When we have, we have to go to the same events, and especially overnight. So it’s tough. You know, we we have a really close family, the four of us, and we hate leaving them alone, but the kids understand they know that mama and daddy are building something for the family. And they and they’re, they’re terrific with it. But yeah, it’s tough to it’s tough to leave them.

Yeah, I mean, go ahead Nikki.

Nikki Shaver 10:43
Yeah, no, I that’s exactly the same answer as I have. I mean, I think it’s interesting. A lot of people would think it’s really difficult to work together, we because of the way I mean, being in legal tech, in the same field, I think is fine. If you’re in different companies, working as we do for now, the same company. I think a lot of people were kind of surprised and thought that might be a significant challenge. But because we started building legal tech hub initially together, and it was during the pandemic when everyone was home. And it was that kind of strange time, you know, we spent weekends and evenings doing this work together of doing all of this research. And that worked really, really well and really nicely between us. And we had developed a really nice sort of rhythm and cadence to working together. And I actually think I, Chris, I don’t know whether you’ll disagree with this. I feel as though it has been better for our relationship to work together than when we were not working together. Like I actually like it more. What have you say, boss? Well, when No, when it came properly into legal tech hub this past year, full time, we made sure that reporting lines were not such that I would be this as boss because that would not work at all, that

Chris Ford 12:09
It doesn’t explain why when she requests, like a cup of coffee by text in the morning, finds that she signs the tech, the the the text, legal tech hub CEO. Why? No, no, that

Greg Lambert 12:26
sounds right to me. Yeah.

Chris Ford 12:29
Marlene and, Greg, what we really are into and what you know, has driven our passion is the fact that we are building what we call Sweat Equity, for the first time in our careers into something of our own, you know, before legal tech hub, neither of us had really run our own business. And this time, we are building something where we are building the entire thing. And we did it genuinely from scratch, we can show you that. Yeah, we’ve got it. We’ve got a fantastic team, now we’re building which is, which is great. But we can show you the paper napkin where we sketched out the first wireframe of the legal Tech Hub website. At a pub on the street during the pandemic, while we were marking up and sipping beers, it was, it’s been a great journey, and we love that we are building this thing together.

It’s interesting, because we’ve had a couple of guests, you know, two of which worked at the same company for a period of time, and then two of which started their own company. And, you know, both had, you know, very different but positive, you know, experiences with with that. And I know, the the folks that started their own company, you know, it’s like kind of 24/7 like they they just sort of live and breathe it and it just sort of bleeds, you know, personal and professional kind of bleed into one another. And they have to like schedule time to be like, Okay, well, one or the other. So like, I’m wondering how you guys approach that?

Nikki Shaver 14:03
I mean, definitely, you’re right, that they bleed into one another. And in fact, one of the reasons why it also works, I think, for us to be in the same business and in the same industry is because we are international and we’re not from New York, but we live here and not our whole social life. But a very significant portion of our social life is in legal tech. It’s the people that we spend time with at conferences or we now have a crowd of people who live in Brooklyn who are in legal tech, where we arrange meetups we have. Chris arranges this Commonwealth orphans meetup, which is people who are Australian and from the UK and now live in New York and are illegal tech. And it’s actually a big part of our social network. So that works really nicely. But I don’t know I feel like because of the kids, maybe we’re pretty good at also having times where we Don’t talk about that. And we have a lot of other interests in common luckily. So we could watch, you know, TV shows and, and have conversations that don’t revolve around it. But I would be lying if I said we didn’t also sometimes just segue into what what about this feature? And what about, you know, that work conversation at the dinner table from time to time? It’s really hard not to I mean, it’s, but I don’t find that problematic. It doesn’t dominate. Except I imagine, we are a startup. So it dominates our lives anyway. Because that’s just the life.

Chris Ford 15:40
Yeah, let’s put up a quick poll, a quick quiz for the for the audience, which out of Chris and Nikki dreams in legal tech, do you think?

Greg Lambert 15:53
I’m gonna say, Nikki,

Chris Ford 15:56
To be to be fair. And I mean, you know, Greg and I both come from families who had their own businesses. And, you know, it’s, you know, I think that, you know, at least from my perspective, there’s a total understanding, I mean, you live and breathe, that, you know, that job because that’s, you know, your, it’s yours. Like you said, you know, you guys created this, and there’s that passion for it.

Nikki Shaver 16:18
Right, exactly. And our kids understand that too. And they feel a sense of pride about it as well. And you rune is such a close partner, and we know his family well, as well. You know, I mean, it is it feels, there’s something close about it, that’s different than working for a large, established company.

Chris Ford 16:38
Yeah.

Greg Lambert 16:40
But I know when we put out a call in back in January, that we were going to do this series that we had you two were mentioned by multiple people that we had to had to talk to the two of you. And it sounds like you’ve got a good community there in the Brooklyn area. But when you run into people at Ulta or o’clock that don’t know that you too, are a couple. What’s What’s the reaction that you get Typically?

Nikki Shaver 17:14
Chris, you have to tell them what you do at our conferences, Chris, Chris, we run some events and Chris’s, one of Chris’s favorite things, is to embarrass me. He’s only allowed to do it once during each event.

Chris Ford 17:25
I mean that that’s not only at the events, I mean, day to day, I’m far I have far more leeway to embarrass her. But I usually wait until the very last emcee this one day event, I usually wait until the very last session, which is invariably a conference wrap up and a q&a with urine and Nicky, and I’ll introduce you ruin by you know, CEO of lead co founder, legal tech hub. And I will always say something wildly inappropriate and romantic about Nikki, to introduce her. Because I know that many people in the audience don’t know that we’re a couple. They’re all like, yeah, I love the awkward looks that are exchanged around the room as they, as I say something like Nikki shaver, CEO, co founder legal tech hub, and what was it? The gate gatekeeper of the four chambers of my heart? Yeah, something like that. Or the other one I did was the mayor of love town population, me.

You can’t be upset about that.

Just make it as cheesy as I can. And I just relish in the awkwardness around the room of the 40 to 50% of people that don’t know were together until Nikki invariably everybody just so you know.

Nikki Shaver 18:56
It is weird when we’re at conferences, though, and I you know, we introduce you know, I say this is Chris, our head of marketing. And then you know, it’s like an also by the way, he’s my husband. I don’t I never know what to lead with. at a social event at a conference obviously in a professional setting. It’s clear what to lead with.

Chris Ford 19:16
Most of the time when Nikki’s not with me, and I say I’m Nikki, showbiz husband, they say something like, You got Nikki I mean, it’s, there’s no need to pull a face

Marlene Gebauer 19:29
You’re like well, yes I did.

Chris Ford 19:32
Yeah.

All right. So I’m going to enjoy asking this question because you too, both have have very distinct and strong personality. So I’m really curious to see how you answer this. How do you guys handle situations where you may not agree on how to handle it? What do you you know, what are your What are your approaches?

Nikki Shaver 20:00
Yeah, I feel as though that hasn’t come up a lot. Weirdly, in the company, I think we’re pretty good at talking through things. I think we’re pretty good at talking through things, I can’t really think of a situation where there’s been a very strong disagreement between us, can you, Chris, on on something to do with a company?

Chris Ford 20:23
No, really not. And look, even non company issues, we’re both passionate people, and we’re not, we’re not the type that will, you know, let something similar or smaller, we’re like, let’s just get it out there. If we need to, you know, get get stuff on the table, let’s get it out there. Because we know we want to move on. Because we just, we like each other too much. And we don’t want to wallow in this. So if it ever comes up, I imagine in a professional sense, I imagine we’ll adopt the same sort of attitude, we both want the same thing. We both want to move on for this. So let’s just get it out there and sort it out.

Nikki Shaver 21:04
I will say it probably helps enormously that, you know, you ruin as a co founder as well. And so typically, you know, he and I will talk things through and then Chris and Jeroen, and I will talk things through and I think that it helps it’s not just the two of us making big decisions. It’s very much you know, Jeroen is part of that as well. And so that having three means it’s it’s different. It’s I can’t reach a situation where there’s a tie that needs to be broken somehow, between the two of us

Greg Lambert 21:36
So, do the two of you ever gang up on Jeroen?

Nikki Shaver 21:42
No.

Chris Ford 21:43
Not, as far as you know, Greg.

Greg Lambert 21:50
So, I think we went ahead and answered the kind of how you balance the work and life together. So Marlene, if you want to jump to the next one. Yeah.

Chris Ford 21:59
So, you know, let’s let’s talk about some of the interesting things. I mean, you know, we know that you both are working on legal technology hubs. So you know, what are some interesting things that are happening now in your business.

Nikki Shaver 22:15
So we launched our subscription platform at the beginning of last year, and we have over 90 enterprise wide subscribers now. So that has moved very quickly. Which is wonderful for us. Obviously, the whole evolution of generative AI has put us in a really good position with firms and companies needing to know about what is happening on the tech side and which companies are adopting generative AI and kind of mapping that has been an area where we’ve been able to be really valuable. We’re excited about some of the growth areas for this year. So growing a lot of content growing the team to be able to support a lot more growth on the content side, really supporting more on the corporate legal side and extending into mid sized firms, and providing some additional features around really the details of security and data hosting locations for products, things that it’s really difficult for people to find out on their own from websites and so on. So, and some other features that are coming that are on the roadmap, which we’ll talk about at a later stage, but we’re yeah, there’s there’s real growth at the moment. And that’s, for me, the exciting thing about the company right now.

Chris Ford 23:32
And one of the cool side effects I think we’ve we’ve had from building legal tech hub is we Nikki and I have a fairly unique insight into the legal technology ecosystem like globally. You know, when we built legal tech hub, we were hoping to launch with 500 tools. And now we have just, we’re closing in on 2400 commercially viable legal technology solutions globally. And what we’ve learned is, you know, we’ve learned that certain parts of the world are strong incubators of legal technology, we’ve learned that there are legal tech deserts in certain countries where we’re like, Hey, you should move what’s going on? Italy? Why aren’t you Why aren’t there a bunch more liberal technology providers there, where there are so heavily concentrated in you know, Finland and, and places like that. So it has been really, really interesting. And not only geographically but to see the growth of the legal technology functions, from the legacy systems like your practice management and Doc automation, through to the AI chatbots and things like that. It’s been a really fascinating journey for us to learn about the world of legal tech.

Greg Lambert 24:43
Yeah. I’m wondering about is you’re talking about culture or different countries, different societies. How are you saying I would say Who do you think is the most eager to change and adapt With with AI tools, and who’s probably t he most reluctant?

Nikki Shaver 25:04
So, you know, it’s so interesting, I would have said up until the beginning of last year, I would have said that the US actually fell behind. In this regard. The US market being such a large legal market, and so strong meant that there was less pressure on firms to adopt technology or new ways of working. And the UK has been ahead of the game in a lot of ways. The Nordic I mean, in terms of other parts of the world, the Nordic Region is a real hotbed for innovation. Australia and Canada are both regions where, I guess because of small markets, they’re quite similar to one another. And again, there’s been real high adoption of technology. And they’re quite innovative markets. But interestingly, last year, things change. And I had this perception during most of the year. And then we ran a survey at the end of the year across a number of different regions, which really confirmed this, which is, last year, the US raced ahead of most other parts of the world, in terms of Gen AI, traction, especially when it comes to legal. And I think there are a number of reasons for that one of which is CaseText availability in the US, and the fact that the content set that CaseText had for CoCounsel was a US data set. And the fact that CaseText, as a company already had a significant measure of trust in the US meant it was easier to adopt. But it’s really interesting to see. So for the first time, I would say the US has actually crept ahead there.

Greg Lambert 26:49
Well, the typically we ask our crystal ball question at this point, but we’re we’ve morphed it into what we’re calling our Valentine’s question in that, with the with the two of you, being a couple working in the same industry working in the same company. If you had another couple come up and ask you, you know, what, what’s the secret? How do you make this work? Chris, I guess we’ll start with you. What what’s some advice that you would give a couple that’s looking to work in the same industry

Chris Ford 27:29
Focus on the fact that you both want the same thing. At the at the end of the day, that you’re both driven towards the same goal. And there may be different paths to get there and different opinions on how to get there. But ultimately, the end goal is the same. For Nikki and I, we are building something for our family. And we always we always frame it that way. This is something for all four of us. And it keeps us you know, it keeps all the outside noise to work to a minimum, when we’re when we’re thinking about which way to go forward.

Nikki Shaver 28:09
For I would say, both of you, whoever you are, bring different skill sets to play. And it’s a matter of really respecting the skills that your partner has, and recognizing where your expertise lies and where their expertise lies. So one of the reasons I think that Chris and I do work so well together is because if something is around marketing, or sales, I would defer to him because his knowledge and experience is much more significant there than mine. But if something came down to legal tech, specifically or innovation, he would defer to my expertise. And so having that professional respect for one another, and remembering that at at its core, you also have a relationship and you like one another. It’s important to remember those things. But if you can really respect one another professionally, I think that that makes it a world of difference.

Chris Ford 29:11
See, I changed my answer now to that. That was way better.

Greg Lambert 29:17
You’re the second one that has done that

Chris Ford 29:21
Little insight to the dynamic of our relationship there. I just also something Nichols Nikki also something way better and smarter. And then I’ll be like, Yep, I can change my mind what she said,

You gotta respect the skill set.

Greg Lambert 29:35
Willingness to be able to shift your opinion. So

Nikki Shaver 29:40
I will just also just quickly say, I mean, Chris is an always has been such an amazing supporter of mine. And he’s, you know, when I said let’s build this. He is the sort of person who instead of saying, that’s crazy talk, we both have jobs. He said, Yeah, let’s do it. And also have the jobs, you know, and that kind of support. I mean, there’s no way this would work unless that existed in the relationship. So I guess having the personalities, the right personalities are is key as well. But I’m very lucky that Chris is so supportive of all of my crazy ideas.

Greg Lambert 30:21
Very cool. Well, Nikki and Chris, thank you very much for coming on The Geek in Review and sharing your love and legal tech story.

Nikki Shaver 30:29
Thank you so much for having us.

Chris Ford 30:31
Thank you, Greg. Thank you, Molly.

And of course, thanks to all of you, our listeners for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoy the show, share it with a colleague. We’d love to hear from you. So reach out to us on social media. I can be found on LinkedIn or on X at @gebauerm or on Threads at @mgebauer66

Greg Lambert 30:51
And I can be reached on LinkedIn or on X at @glambert and Threads you can reach me at @glambertpod. Nikki and Chris, where can listeners reach out and find out more about you and about legal technology hub?

Nikki Shaver 31:08
Certainly Find us on LinkedIn under my name Nicola Shaver, and legal technology hub.com And on LinkedIn legal tech hub one.com legal tech that’s on Twitter, I think anyway, find us on LinkedIn.

Greg Lambert 31:24
They’ll find you

Chris Ford 31:25
You can’t find me because my name is Chris Ford. And it’s just last week, there were two Chris Ford’s at ABA Tech show in the same hotel

that’s funny. And and the love and legal tech music that you hear for this series is from Jerry David DeCicca and Eve Searls. So thank you, Jerry and Eve.

Greg Lambert 31:53
Yeah, thanks, Jerry and Eve. All right. Thank you, everyone.

The conversation delves into the technical and strategic journey of bringing CoCounsel to market, highlighting the team’s rapid pivot to leverage GPT-4 technology and the collaborative effort that ensured its successful launch. Pablo emphasizes the importance of quality control, trust, and addressing the nuanced requirements of legal research to ensure that CoCounsel met the high expectations of its users, including law librarians and legal professionals.

Pablo also reflects on the broader implications of generative AI for the legal industry, including the rapid adoption by law firms and legal departments seeking to leverage this technology to enhance their research capabilities and workflow efficiencies. The discussion touches on the ongoing challenges and opportunities presented by generative AI, such as regulatory considerations, ethical concerns, and the need for continuous education and adaptation within the legal profession.

The acquisition of CaseText by Thomson Reuters is discussed, with Pablo sharing his perspective on the strategic move and its potential to further expand and enhance CoCounsel’s capabilities and reach. He highlights the synergy between CaseText’s innovative approach and Thomson Reuters’ extensive resources and market presence, which together aim to drive the next wave of advancements in legal technology and research tools.

Finally, the episode explores future directions for generative AI in legal research, including the expansion of CoCounsel’s capabilities to encompass a wider range of legal tasks and its potential to transform the practice of law. Pablo’s enthusiasm for the possibilities ahead underscores the significant impact that generative AI is set to have on the legal industry, promising to revolutionize how legal professionals interact with information and conduct research.

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠

Contact Us: 

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads: @glambertpod or @gebauerm66
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠ and Eve Searls⁠

⁠⁠Transcript

Marlene Gebauer 0:09
Welcome to The Geek in Review. The podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal industry. I’m Marlene Gebauer.

Greg Lambert 0:16
And I’m Greg Lambert. So it has been a year since the official launch of case Texas CoCounsel generative AI ai legal research tool, and a research tool that was not just the first to market, but one that many of my colleagues still say is the best AI legal research tool that is out there. So in order to mark this anniversary, we have asked our longtime friend, and I think guest number two, yeah, after Zena Applebaum, who are now working together, by the way, we asked Pablo Arredondo, who’s the vice president of CoCounsel. And many of us remember as the co founder of CaseText, we asked him to come back onto the show and talk to us about this anniversary. So Pablo, welcome back to The Geek in Review.

Pablo Arredondo 1:05
Guys, thank you so much for having me back. Great to be here.

Greg Lambert 1:08
So probably you and Jake Heller And Laura Safdie, and the rest of the team there CaseText Were always known as these trailblazers and, you know, when it came to legal research and advancements, in fact, you always seem to be like the very first one to mark it with with all these great ideas, and then everyone would come in behind and copy those.

Marlene Gebauer 1:34
Yeah, and this there’s no difference when it came to applying generative AI ai functionality to legal research when you lost when you launched CoCounsel on the CMS March 1 2023. So, you know, take us back, if you don’t mind to the War Room at CaseText. And your decision to jump into the deep end of Gen AI ai, and how you and the CaseText team were able to get CoCounsel launched real quickly.

Pablo Arredondo 2:00
Okay, well, yeah, it’s just crazy to think it’s only been a year since it came out. And you know, for us, the dive into generative AI, or these Large Language Models actually goes back a few years, you know, that was on your guys, I was in back here with you guys, I think April of 2021, talking about all the things you can do with search by using neural nets and language models, you know, using precursors, like Bert read these earlier models. And so we kind of fell in love with these things very early on. Because we saw that they could allow this whole new level of interacting with information where you weren’t suffering from what I theatrically call the tyranny of the keyword, right, for the first time, the system had language encoded in such a way that it could get the gist to kind of understand the meaning, even if there was no overlap. And so, you know, sometimes we were like, Oh, you guys had such, you know, sort of vision to see where the, you know, the truth is, like, we were take, we didn’t have to take a lot on faith, like we were seeing this stuff create a tremendous amount of value, right away, right from our earliest applications of doing it. And what really sort of changed, everything was September 16 2022. So about, you know, six months before, the actual launch of CoCounsel is when Jake and I under an NDA saw the first demo with GPT-4. And that was one of the craziest weeks of my life. I mean, we were given access to a Slack channel, where literally the Slack channel was like just being able to call GPT-4 and ask questions. And remember, this is six weeks before ChatGPT had come out. Nobody had seen any of this stuff at all, you know, outside of the folks working on it. And we immediately saw that it was this qualitative leap, and that it could do so much more than what we had seen before much more than we expected. Even our you know, our brightest AI scientists at the company were sort of like damn, like, this is actually happening. Well, it’s it was not a given. And so, you know, we pivoted the entire company to doing it to the focusing on it. And that’s where startups kind of have sometimes an advantage, which is we can be nimble like that, right, it’s relatively easy for us to pivot the entire company. And what’s so great about that, you know, every team at the company had something to do, right, you know, how do you market these now these things that make people afraid, sometimes and how do you were branding it this mysterious black box AI, and then sometimes we had to create new teams like the, you know, quality control and trust trust team who can evaluate these to see if it’s actually working the way it’s intended to work and to do the kind of control on that. And so what we liked were we had in beta and then some you guys seen this red was a much broader set of skills than what we actually launched with red part of what we did is we prune down to just those skills that had passed muster. And legal research I think was but you know, absolutely sort of the anchor tenant, if you will, for a few reasons. One. It’s such a great way to show off the power of these language models that it’s able to understand the nuance have an input into the system. And the nuance of the cases that come back now, not infallible certainly, but doing it well enough that well, let me put it this way. You know, I was a co author on the GPT-4 passes the bar paper. And I was like, that’s a cool, that’s cool. It’s neat. It’s a great, cool milestone kind of marketing. But what really convinced me this was real was when the law librarian community didn’t rip it to shreds, right. And they said things, and I may have said this before, but you know, they called it solid. That is, that was gushing praise I’ve ever heard from a law librarian, right. So right, when suddenly this thing was actually, you know, like, you know, and again, not infallible by any stretch, but you know, like, able to handle that, in a way the librarians are saying, it’s actually doing the thing. To me, I was like, Well, this is actually happening. And the other thing with legal research is there weren’t as many security concerns, right, security, and privacy is obviously a huge part of of any, anytime you’re practicing law. And while I think some of the most exciting use cases for this technology is uploading your own documents, right, we were talking before we started about, you know, pointing it at all of the documents in your litigation, the transcripts, the correspondence, discovery, etc. That, you know, you have to go through some hoops on security for folks to feel comfortable doing that. Whereas with legal research, it was like, you know, here’s the case law, have at it. And so we launched with legal research, the ability to create your own databases, some of skills are on contract analysis, and you know, does this contract comply, some depo prep, you know, sort of this sort of battery of different skills. And you know, what more testament to how different it’s been than the venue we chose to launch it on, which was morning, Joe, on an MSNBC. And I will never forget the faces of the hosts, as here come sleep deprived Jake and I, there, Jake was covering a lot better than I was carrying a laptop. They’re like, you see them, like hitting the security button under the desk. Like, they think that they’re gonna come on national TV and demo illegal tech product. It was like, um, and it’s just been, it’s just been wild. I mean, it’s just been such an amazing year. Just on all fronts.

Greg Lambert 7:09
Yeah, I just remember it because Pablo was wearing a tie. Yeah. And it was one of the few times I think I’d seen you wearing a tie. Right?

Pablo Arredondo 7:18
Right. Although jeans, because they’re only gonna see me, I wear jeans, cuz I’m like, they’re only going to see above the table, but then they have the shot where it’s like, Nope, he’s wearing T shirts. Anyway. I tried.

Marlene Gebauer 7:26
I tried. So that was my that was very Startup of You.

Greg Lambert 7:28
Yeah, that’s how they were startup. So well, you know, you, you kind of mentioned this with the, with the library, the law librarians themselves, kind of jumping in and seeing this as a a, you know, a big advancement. But it wasn’t just the libraries. Marlene and I have talked for the past 18 months on this, that we have never seen the legal industry, especially big law, and even fortune 500 legal departments, you know, just absolutely move as quickly as they have with this advancement than legal tech when when it comes to generative AI. So, you know, as you were taking this new tool, this kind of kind of crazy thought of the technology can understand the language. And not just the you know, not not just the keywords. How, you know, how surprised were you with the reaction that you were getting when you were showing the product?

Pablo Arredondo 8:28
So the six weeks where we were showing it to people under NDA, before they had seen ChatGPT at all, was some of the strangest experiences I’ve ever had full stop with like a fellow humans, because they were going from like zero, to suddenly seeing you know, and there’s something language is kind of uniquely human, there’s something a little unnerving about seeing a machine have language. And, you know, immediately their minds went to cyber dime, you know, that the Terminator scenarios to sort of the end of legal practice. You know, and then we’ll perhaps later talk about that, obviously, there was a lot of hyperbole around this stuff, you know, early on, and that that was honestly like, it was beyond just legal tech and felt like just this moment, as our species was like encountering this intelligence, and did have like, the chance to be the one to show that to certain people was profound, you know, I mean, it was a really an amazing moment that I don’t think of in terms of normal legal tech sales, right? In terms of like the the normal legal tech sales process. I mean, I’m, you know, I’m a geek, I’m a nerd, I love you got the law librarians are always the one I’m trying to impress the sales reps. Were very happy with how like the managing partners, were reaching out to us saying the clients are asking about this. I think that’s one of the huge differences, right? The clients, you know, last decade, we’re not asking them, What are you doing about the blind spot and current sighters where it’s not catching soft relationships? Certainly something like Kara wired up, right, that was never coming from the clients, you know, in this heated way at the bread. This is something where the public rank or around it and ChatGPT has been it’s sort of mixed blessing in a way because it was misused. was in so many ways, right? It had the hallucinations like the consumer Chatbot. But on the whole, what it just did is it just elevated and magnified the public discussion around this in such a way that you had something quite unusual and LegalTech, which is like partners reaching out, you know, certainly to folks like yourselves sometimes directly to us, asking, you know, we need to know what’s going on here, we need to see this. So it’s just such a night and day difference compared to, you know, what it’s been? And well, you know, somebody will say, Oh, that’s how lucky these new startups that are born into this, I don’t know, I think the real joy is 10 years in the old world, and then experiencing that, because then you can truly, truly savor it.

Greg Lambert 10:40
Yeah, I just wanted to follow up on that, because, you know, this was early 2023. And you mentioned hallucinations, we still almost weekly now, you know, it’s some story that comes out where some law firm has submitted, I guess the latest one is, there was a law firm that submitted a brief to the court on how it should be paid, that use ChatGPT to write the entire document on how white why it should structure its legal fees the way that it does. But what are you, you know, we had some what I call March 2023. Problems with the hallucinations of not understanding how to use the product. What are you seeing as like March 2024, for problems that, that users are running into this?

Pablo Arredondo 11:34
Right. Yeah. So I think that’s such a great way to put it, I think, you know, initially just understanding the difference between a chatbot. And using technology like, you know, that uses retrieval augmented generation that uses these other architectures, that you can really use it, that was the big problem. I think now we’re at a place where some of those old or old friends in legal tech like workflow, and access to documents and integrations are starting to come up a bit more right. And more and more, I think now it’s like, okay, when the rubber hits the road, how do we actually apply this in the real world? And I think those are solvable. And I think, you know, just as this technology caused all this fanfare, with new average to learn about legal tech, I’m hopeful that this technology will galvanize a bunch of integrations between you know, a lot of these these systems, consequently, oh, sorry, please, go ahead.

Marlene Gebauer 12:23
No, you go ahead. I thought you’re done.

Pablo Arredondo 12:25
Let’s do one at a time.

Marlene Gebauer 12:27
Well, no, it’s mine is a totally different question. So finish up.

Pablo Arredondo 12:30
Oh, well, then I’d say also, cost is another issue. I think, right now, the best models are still pricey. And there’s different things that are going on in that front, right. So first is a lot of people are working very hard to make them less expensive. And that’s, you know, that is the Lord’s work as far as I’m concerned. And then we’re also evolving how we can do prompting to better leverage and make it more efficient. You know, the fact that these models, it costs a lot more for them to write something down, then for them to read something. Okay, well, if you do that, then you can kind of designed certain flows that are less write intensive, and can bring the cost down and the speed up. I think that’s an issue. And then I think, yeah, you’ve just got this range. I mean, for the, I don’t know, Greg, you got you guys tell me. But has there ever been a time where firms have dealt with the open the first letter from the client, and it says, You better not be using this tech? And then the next letter says, You better be using this tech? I mean, have you ever seen that before? With anything? I mean, this is?

Greg Lambert 13:24
Yeah, well, it was worded differently. It was, we want you to handle all of our legal work. But we want you to do it on the cheap. But we want it to be really good. So I mean, it’s just a different application of the same and, and quite frankly, I mean, it’s a little a little off topic for for this is I think that’s the the bad relationship between clients and law firms, is they don’t talk to each other. And so this is just one more tool where there’s different expectations, sometimes different expectations from the same people on how it should be applied. But how it, you know, I want you to apply it, and I want you to reduce cost. But I don’t want you using any of my stuff to do that.

Pablo Arredondo 14:10
So and then relatedly literally less one, and then let’s jump but another 2024 problem we’re seeing is like how do we regulate this as a profession, right? Do we need new rules? Do we need new duties, and you’re starting to see Task Force form, California release their roles, which is pretty laissez faire? You know, California was basically like, let’s go over all the rules that already exist and think to ourselves like these don’t stop existing just because new technology is here, which generally is what I like. Contrast that I think with Florida, which started getting into like, specifically how you should build this back to your clients. And I think, you know, cause some quizzical eyebrows among folks have been like, what first? Why are you even purporting to tell me how to do that? Secondly, what are you saying Does it make sense? So I think that’s another thing we’re going to be seeing is, you know, how do we regulate this stuff? If it Do we use existing rules? Do we create new ones, etc. Anyway, Marlene?

Marlene Gebauer 15:05
No, I just I wanted to revisit a thread that you just mentioned about sort of education. And you know, where do you think it’s critical, you know, in terms of education for users on these types of tools? Like what what are what are the things that we should be focusing on most?

Pablo Arredondo 15:26
So education has come up again and again, in different contexts. So I think starting with start with law school for a moment, right? So my view is a lot of law school education is absolutely unbothered by this, right? Like the torts, the doctrines of torts or contracts, this stuff goes back to like William the Conqueror, and how you think about these relationships in these rights and sort of think analytically, is not really tech specific. So I think that the danger there is just making sure that students aren’t like using this stuff to write their essay, and not thinking about it as rigorously as they could have, right. And that’s where you might see a thing. But then for things like advanced legal research, or writing or legal research and writing, of course, you need this stuff to be taught, right? It’s going to become just, you know, part of how you’re doing and and so I think it does need to fold in there. The problem is just getting the cost in a place where we can do it, right. It’s, it’s just a lot more expensive. Then comes this more subtle stuff about the training of junior Associates, and my thinking on this is evolved. So when the partners first used to say, what about all the things that they learn when they’re doing that tedious work? I was like, What a shocker. The person who’s building out that guy for 700 bucks an hour, is worried about the like, pedagogical cut. Right? And so at first I admit, I looked at it cynically, right. But as I think more about it, you know, when I was at Kirkland, Ellis, I had no idea how corporations worked at all, I had no exposure to them, right? I didn’t have family members, right? Doing those long nights of Doc review, right? Whether I knew it or not, I was actually was sort of through osmosis, ingesting certain aspects about how, you know, corporations run and those things were useful in sort of understanding litigation to some extent. So the analogy I make is sort of the Karate Kid, you know, Daniel said, like, you know, wax on wax off, he’s got to paint the, you know, wax the car, paint the fence, and you’d like why how can anyone learn anything? Well, it turns out that those are like components of something bigger. So I actually do think so basically, my evolution for whatever it’s worth is to go from cynical dismissals, like, please, you’re just saying that you want to be willing to realizing that there, there actually are some things that are learned during those tedious processes that we need to think about. How do you just balance that out? Right? How do you how do you make sure that that is still learned in those ways? In a world where increasingly, Large Language Models can do like a lot of that, that listing?

Marlene Gebauer 17:38
So the news dropped in in August of 2023, that Thomson Reuters acquired CaseText. And so Greg, and I’ve known you for a long time, and you know, we were very happy for you yet, we were we were a little surprised, you know, our favorite scrappy startup was painful to get into the car business. So what were your thoughts during this time, you know, as the decision was made to start working with Thomson Reuters?

Pablo Arredondo 18:05
Yeah, so the few things went into that. So of course, he was like, what, why is Pablo not sad about it? Right? That’s what you’re basically like indirectly saying, give it like, you know, he’s always grabbed for it. And the truth is, I’m not I’m not, I wasn’t, we weren’t beforehand. And now I’m really, really not. So I think a couple of things first, the the reality of unique content to point this out, right. And we had gotten as far as we could, trying our hardest to reproduce content. And whereas with our earlier technology, it was sort of annoying that we didn’t have you know, certain aspects content. When we started showing this stuff. Again, we were the only ones who had it for awhile, right? People were, you know, grabbing us by the shirt on, you’re holding up the wall be like, You better get this content. Right. I don’t have that because I need it. Right. So the demands for contents, you know, we can so intensified. And at the same time, our maturity about what it really takes to reproduce this content, right, you know, not just the primary sources, but all the editorial stuff, right? And, yes, when you’re competing, we’re like, nobody needs editorial stuff, nobody needs come on, you guys are just, you’re just making up that you want that administrative body, you know, really what you want is whatever state law you know, the truth is, is that, you know, it helps tremendously to have not just the primary sources, but also a lot of this stuff that’s folded into it. So that’s part one. And then the idea is we wouldn’t just spend 10 years reinventing the wheel we’d spend 10 years inventing like hassle wheel with cracks in it that wasn’t as good so I think especially with this new technology, you just feel this mandate to go and just bring it to its best embodiment as fast as you can. I mean, this is if you work in legal tech, this is it this is like you’re never going to have more of an opportunity to to bring good to the profession. So you know what, why not do the things that are just going to lead to that right. And then the other thing and this was something you know, a little bit maybe on faith we took but now we’re seeing you realize is that Thomson Reuters really is all in on this AI stuff. Like they really do see CoCounsel I think we’ll talk about it in a bit. it not just let’s take all of our product lines and enhance them with with generative AI, although by God means do that that’s a wonderful thing. But what’s this new category that’s going to exist where this AI assistant can follow you from surface to surface from Microsoft Word to your DMS, to your legal research? Right? And that category, I think, is they believe it in enough that they, you know, paid for us and we were more cheap, right, you know, we, you know, they paid for us. And, and we’ve seen everything we’ve seen since we’ve joined has been that they really do buy into that. And they really are supporting that. And so those are the two reasons why I don’t worry, I’m actually quite happy with it. And I hope in time that anyone who had any lingering doubts, will see that it was a very good thing that we joined.

Greg Lambert 20:46
On a side note, I will say before the announcement, Marlene, and I had a private conversation where we were wondering, did, did they miss out on being acquired? Did they wait too long? So that shows you why we’re on the microphones and not actually doing startup? So you know, but from what we’re seeing, and, you know, in this whole integration that, you know, it seems to be the it’s pretty smooth integrating with Thomson Reuters, the rest of the platform, you know, and there are multiple General Journal of AI tools that as users that we see moving forward, so you know, we’ve got the CaseText path, we’ve got the Thomson Reuters precision path, the practical law path, I’m sure there, there’s other big ones that we probably don’t don’t even know about. So what I want to know is, how do you and Mike Dane and Kriti Sharma and others, who are the AI bigwigs within within the company? How are you making both these separate paths work so that you all succeed? But, you know, at the same time you benefit from each other, but you continue to kind of have that CaseText personality, as well, which seems to still be there. How do you make that work?

Pablo Arredondo 22:09
Well, I mean, this CaseText personality is just so intense, I don’t know if anything diluted, I mean, at this point, you know.

Greg Lambert 22:15
You’re influencing you’re influencing TR rather than TR influencing you.

Pablo Arredondo 22:20
But it goes both ways, though, too. I mean, there’s there’s plenty that we’re learning from them as well. I mean, tr, tr has, you know, a lot of experience with a lot of stuff. And you know, you know, actually things so we talked about testing a bit, right? Oh, my goodness, for Thomson Reuters starts testing, it is the most beautiful, extensive, like, you know, they write up like actually what’s going on, right, which is more than we had our resources to do, right, we’re choosing this kind of crude doesn’t flag and things like that. So I think the key is to take the best from both cultures and and combine it together. And what I think is gonna, what makes that so important. And what I think will facilitate it is that we all have this vision now of this AI that kind of floats across the different product lines, right? Even product lines. It those silos existed because they had to because it was too hard to have things talk to each other. And there wasn’t, you know, how much knowledge do you really gain if you do it? Well, now, thanks to this new technology, the gains are going to be tremendous. And, and I don’t want to make it sound easy. And I can see all the engineers rolling their eyes like oh, look at public talking about how easy it’s going to be. You know, a lot of work goes into doing it well. But I do think that this technology also makes it a lot more feasible to have a system that could go talk to like six different platforms, or products, and then and then bring it together.

Greg Lambert 23:33
So it’s not just putting a chat bot in there and making it all work.

Pablo Arredondo 23:36
No, no, I mean, if we here’s the thing is like, you want to slap you want to slap AI and everything to mix with you everything it touches better. But again, to reiterate, I think there’s that that sort of bigger picture, right, this new category of legal AI assistant, that’s really where the competition is now and in where it shouldn’t be. And I you know, I welcome any and all folks who are competing with us in that space, because that is going to be I think legal Tech’s biggest contribution to the practice of law is whatever comes out of this, this competition.

Marlene Gebauer 24:07
So switching gears a little bit, so just a week ago, CaseText for Canada, and Australia just just launched. And that’s it just like I’m sort of seeing a trend this way to where, you know, we’re seeing a lot more for an international, you know, types of, of, of access. So how’s the team adjusting to expanding the resources beyond the US and what are plans for possibly additional areas?

Pablo Arredondo 24:38
Yeah, I mean, my colleague, Laura Safdie had hurt over last year. She’s like Herculean work, dealing with all the contract stuff just to the United States. And now it’s like Oh, joy, Laura, Laura, look, here’s a globe Do you mind just can we just get it everywhere? So so a lot of very cheap cheese, you know, quickly having to learn all the regulation and get up to speed on that along with, you know, her colleagues in that area, but this is to my point right now. Within months of joining firstly, with tons of writers, our stuff is now being sent around the globe, right? So if you’re sincere about wanting to do this stuff, right? Do you see how that’s a better path than even though you lose that kind of scrappy individuality which stuck around? Yeah, who doesn’t love feeling that, you know, it’s a good feeling. But like in terms of just actually making the world a better place, this is the kind of stuff that we can do join forces with Thomson Reuters, where literally, it would be 10 years before we got to Australia or Canada, in the in the other world. And so, you know, there’s a lot of competing regulations right now around AI, which is going to be interesting, right, England’s taking one stance, the European Union is taking another. So we’ll be sort of on the will be affected by that it’ll be really interesting to see like, what places can we go to? And what places do we need to do this or that group? But, you know, the fundamental technology seems to work on on all major languages. Although, you know, with the caveat, so we’re working with Harvard Law Library Innovation Lab, translating French statutes, and then having experts go and look and say, like, is this capturing the nuance, right, because it’s one thing to translate a poem or like a birthday card, or kind of, you know, generic things. What happens when you try to translate actual statutory language, and we’ll be, you know, publishing something about soon and making the translation available. But for the most part, this technology is ready to roll and ready to rock and roll in certainly every English speaking country and a lot of non English countries as well.

Greg Lambert 26:26
So probably let me let me ask him on a personal level, how’s your work life integration changed? From moving from the startup who, you know, I would get emails from you, you know, in the middle of the night, are you because you’re on the West Coast? And I was, I was in Central time, you know, I would see them in the morning, but they’d be like, you know, three o’clock? Yeah. Are you still having the late late days? Or are you able to kind of take take a breath and and not have to answer every question that comes your way?

Pablo Arredondo 26:59
Yeah, I mean, that’s, you know, not when you’re a co founder, every it’s everything in anything. And I think for many hats, you did this last year, honestly, this last year, you there’s no, you don’t want to glamorize it. It was tough. It was tough on my family, it was tough. I’m, you know, I think my wife’s credit was like Ken GPT-4 automatically divorce hear from somebody and I Yeah, but um, but um, you know, that that, you know, your startups are pretty all consuming. And then the nature of this technology. I mean, this is something where you can finish your day of work, and then go see an essay about what is the impact on humanity, right or on the society, right. And it’s also changing so quickly, so that you’re constantly like, Oh, my God, this is somebody miles. So it is it is extremely consuming. area to be working in right now. But that said, Yeah, with tons of writers like, it’s, it’s not, you know, they’re not, it’s different than CaseText, in terms of things that they feel that I should be directly involved in. And I welcome that, as well. We have very good people handling it. Can I divert it to one year, I want to try this out with you guys, and tell me what you think. So if you think about like other big moments, where we harnessed stuff to then create value, so think of like oil, right? So you had millions of years of all these prehistoric little ocean animals. And then you had the force of geological pressure on that for a second. And now we have oil, and it’s like, Oh, my goodness, right. You know, nuclear power, we harness the atom power from like, the threat with these Large Language Models are what’s so interesting to me about them is we’re harnessing our own words here, where we really did was take everything ever written, all of the combined effort of anyone who wrote anything down, and then basically figured out how to, like compress that into this new thing. Right. And so we’re harnessing our own work for for the first time. And I think a lot of the issues, we’re having the bias and the this and that, right. It’s because now this is us, like this is our collective work as a species that’s really going to I don’t know if that adds any value to anything anyone’s thinking about. But do you see what I mean? It’s, it’s a qualitatively different.

Greg Lambert 29:04
Yeah, resource. Yeah. And I think that was probably the reason that you saw the legal industry jump as quickly as you had, because this is the first time that we’ve been able to kind of have this model based on our on language, not not on keywords, not on database structure, not not on organization of the information, but just, you know, taking it as messy as it is, and finding out you know, the results can also be messy because of it. And so, to me, and maybe this is a little off from from your point. The thing that I’m hearing over and over and over again, is that for this to really work, we we you know, this has been the overnight 25 Year problem. Law firms data is super messy and and In order for us to really take advantage of this with our own information, we’ve got to start cleaning it up. And my hope is that we’ll be able to leverage the resources that are coming out from the LLMs. And the way to integrate that, and again, in going back to your, it’s a lot easier for it to input information than it is to export information. You know, being able to leverage that in a in a, in a way to standardize to normalize the information is going to be huge. And I don’t think it’s going to be easy, I think it’s, it’s going to be a struggle, somebody’s going to figure it out. But right now, everyone knows, it knows we need to do it. But we don’t know, really how to start. So maybe that’ll be the next startup for us.

Marlene Gebauer 30:56
And I think it’s given us the opportunity to be a little more introspective, because, you know, we’ve seen, you know, based on these models that, you know, what all of our colleges is, you know, it’s not always so great. And, and, you know, there’s there’s bias, and, you know, maybe these hallucinations are kind of based on, it’s based on the information that it’s getting. And, you know, I think there’s a real opportunity to sort of look at this, you know, it’s like, yes, it’s incredibly powerful, but, you know, are we doing it the right way? Is the output, right? You know, are we taking care of everybody’s rights? Who might be touched by this? And, you know, sort of looking at is like, okay, we can do it? Should we do it? Or if we should do it, how should we do it?

Greg Lambert 31:50
Well, and to take your oil analogy.

Pablo Arredondo 31:54
We did it, what happens if we do it 10 times bigger, let’s find out. And that that’s, that’s our version of that.

Greg Lambert 32:00
Yeah, and just to kind of to wrap it up, going back to the the oil analogy. I mean, you can get, you know, you can get oil out of the the Sand Tars, there’s tar sands in Canada, but it’s, it’s really complicated and hard to clean that up. Whereas, you know, if everything was a nice, light, sweet crude that you get from, you know, from the North Sea, or from Saudi Arabia, be a lot easier there. But those are limited resources. So we’ll see what we do with the with our resource, right.

Pablo Arredondo 32:34
Great. we are talking to a Texas, man, you know,

Marlene Gebauer 32:36
That’s how you can tell.

Pablo Arredondo 32:39
I think that that’s right. And and you know, that we don’t know what the most powerful models are trained on. Right? We don’t. But I will say that, at some point, once it’s enough, it’s like, are things that different if like, Oh, we did this enough, right. bracketing, like the copyright and all that stuff, right. I think at some point, it’s such a huge mass of of language, that I don’t know how much it matters, what the precise contours are, I guess, but so we are. Yeah, so there’s a few things going on, we’re building out the ability to build out AI, if that makes sense. And, you know, it’s one of these things where creating like a skills factor, if you will, right, the system by which you can start to do that. Now, what’s frustrating about that is that it’s not user facing. And so there’s this delay, where people are like, What’s going on over there, what’s going on is we’re refining and iterating, the process by which we can then create these new skills and these new functionalities. So that’s a key key aspect of it. We are then looking to, you’re going to see generative AI ai enhancing current product lines. And that that is, you know, wonderful in its own right. But we’re already you’re also going to start to see an assistant that can span multiple platforms. And that’s what I think we’re all most excited about. It’s not an overnight system, but it really represents I think, this like paradigm shift and what a piece of legal technology is, and that’s where you know that that’s that’s a lot of work is getting it right every time there’s a new task it does, there’s like a risk of failure for that aspect of it. But I think that’s the big picture. That’s what that’s what’s coming next. And don’t get me wrong along the way. I mean, we’re gonna this is gonna be you guys are no carers did a dear to my heart brief analyzers, right? So like, you can drag and drop a brief the very earliest ones right? Were quote checker right, you could check your quote, then Kara, our stuff, it wouldn’t suggest new cases. Now you have the idea is that what you can do is, are the fundamentally misrepresenting the case that they’re citing, right? Or the transcript that they’re citing the idea of having a computer that can code through a brief and all of the supporting exhibits and case law and flag instances where they just don’t see the line? That I mean, that is, you know, with this AI, I think there’s two mistakes people make some people think, Oh, it’s a robot lawyer, and it’s going to take all the jobs like nonsense, but the other mistake is, it’s just going to be used for pedestrian things. It’s just gonna be used for administrative thing you know, it’s just going to make declar and stuff. And the truth is in the middle, right, you know, finding substantive discrepancies between what a lawyer is represented to the court and the evidence is supported. That is at the heart of litigation. I mean, that is people do go to law school to get to do that over and over, right? It’s the most pure motivations to want to smack someone else down. But here we are. So I think that, you know, products like that, like when I when I talk about enhancements to existing product lines, it’s not just going to be like a chat bot, that is a nicer interface, you’re going to see, like, you know, enormous expansions and capability of existing flows like quick check, and other things like that.

Greg Lambert 35:38
Very cool. So, Pablo, we can’t let you get out of here without asking our crystal ball question. And I know we’ve kind of touched on on things. But let’s pull it into one coherent response if possible. So what do you see over the next couple of years, when it comes to advancements in legal technology and legal research tools?

Pablo Arredondo 36:03
I think over the next couple of years, I would think you’re going to, it’s going to become much more ubiquitous, because price is going to fall, speed is gonna go up, right? So it’s sort of the underlying hardware is going to make this something that’s that’s much, you know, in a lot more places, you’re going to see entirely new client offerings, things that law firms never used to do, but are suddenly now involved in doing part of that, perhaps, to us to compensate for erosion of certain billing, you know, for around certain tasks. And I think you’re going to see some but certainly not like sci fi, versions of agentic behavior, right, where the AI is able to go and complete tasks for you. I think that that’s one of these areas where like, it’s very easy to do an early demo and say, Oh, look, it’s here. You know, look at it. It went through Zillow for me, and you know, yeah, I think to really get that to a reliable place will take time. But two years from now, I’d be surprised if you’re not, you know, seeing some some precursors of that kind of behavior. And then obviously, the biggest caveat, which is like, so much of this depends on who’s right about the plateau of scaling up this technique. There are those who think we basically hit the plateau, GBT five won’t be that different than GPT-4. And there are those who think that we’re gonna scale it up and see the same sort of quantum leap. And I like, tell me because disagree. Like, what would what would it look like to have as big a jump? To GBT five as what four was to three? Right? Think about just how insane it was when you first started seeing what GPT-4 could do. Now imagine in two months, there’s another one. That’s right. It could throw a lot of predictions out the window. But, you know, so, yeah, that would be the most I’d hazard on a crystal ball.

Greg Lambert 37:47
Yeah, and what I’m what I’m seeing on on the big advancements are more in the multimodal, and so more on audio more on video. Multimedia. That’s, that’s a huge jump. And I don’t think people really appreciate how big that jump is. At the moment

Pablo Arredondo 38:06
We prototype something, you can fit it an image of factory workers being negligent in various ways, and it’s scanning it now. And then we use petricola content. So it’s finding the precise GFR violations. So it’s literally like like policing the factory for OSHA violations very,

Greg Lambert 38:21
You’re using that picture of the guy that using a forklift to change a light bulb? Is that okay?

Pablo Arredondo 38:26
Well, this is I’ve got I’ve got a forklift lifting another forklift. And this is, you know what, like, so many great things with Evan shake minute Fisher. And then near term, the context window is gonna get a lot bigger, we’re starting to see flickering of that, which really matters, right, because then you’ll be able to feed a lot more information at once and have the AI synthesize and analyze it, you know, like 10, different 100 Page merger agreements, you can look at it all at once, which can then you can start to do like trends and things like that, that aren’t really as easy to do when you have to chunk everything. So it’s just kind of something like I was, I was so excited about this technology in April of 2021. But all it was doing was making it a little better to find, you know, the cases and documents you’re looking for. You can imagine sort of like supernova of excitement. And so, you know, we’re all in this together. It’s again, not overnight, but it is decidedly not a fluke. We’re like a free domain, something we’re like, oh, it just feels about it turns out it wasn’t really there. It is emphatically not that and it’s just now a matter of doing the hard work to put the guard rails and to bring it to bear.

Greg Lambert 39:34
Awesome. Well, Pablo Arredondo, Vice President CoCounsel at Thomson Reuters. Always a pleasure. Thank you very much for coming in and celebrating your one year anniversary of CoCounsel with us.

Marlene Gebauer 39:46
Thanks, Pablo.

Pablo Arredondo 39:47
Thank you guys. Always a pleasure.

Marlene Gebauer 39:50
And of course, thanks to all of you, our listeners for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoyed the show, share it with a colleague. We’d love to hear from you. So reach out to us on social media. I could be found on LinkedIn, or on X at @gebauerm and on Threads at @mgebauer66.

Greg Lambert 40:07
And I can be reached on LinkedIn or on X @glambert or @glambertpod on Threads. Pablo, if someone wanted to learn more, we’re where’s your preferred place online for them to go?

Pablo Arredondo 40:21
Yeah, my email got a little bit longer. It’s Pablo.Arredondo@ThomsonReuters.com. I did ask them could I just have Pablo at Thomson Reuters and they sort of looked at me and blank they were like, did you just you just don’t know what’s going on.

You Yeah, Pablo.Arredondo@ThomsonReuters.com always happy to follow up talk shop demos, whatever you guys want.

Marlene Gebauer 40:46
Okay. That is always the music you hear is from Jerry David DeCicca Thank you so much, Jerry. Thanks, Jerry.

Greg Lambert 40:52
Alright, thanks everyone.

Currently, Ab is the Chief Revenue Officer at legal project management startup Lupl. Ab is also the podcast host at Fringe Legal. Priti is the Legal Tech Consulting Manager at Baker Hostetler’s alternative legal services provider IncuBaker. Though their roles differ, being in the same industry allows them to bounce ideas off each other. However, the blurred lines between personal and professional lives can be challenging. They try not to talk about work on vacation.

Professionally, they handle disagreements through discussion and debate thanks to their backgrounds. They present their opinions but don’t fight about them, often agreeing to disagree. Socially, they set expectations ahead of time for how long they’ll stay at events. They “divide and conquer” at conferences by networking separately but checking in.

The common reaction now is that it’s cool they work in the same industry because they understand each other’s challenges. They want to stand on their own professionally, not just be known in relation to each other. Their advice to other couples considering working together is to focus on communication and keep an open mind when sharing opinions.

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠

Contact Us: 

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads: @glambertpod or @gebauerm66
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠ and Eve Searls⁠

⁠⁠Transcript

Marlene Gebauer 0:05
Welcome to The Geek in Review the podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal profession. I’m Marlene Gebauer,

Greg Lambert 0:12
And I’m Greg Lambert. So Marlene, we’ve got some new music that we’ve that we twist Jerry’s arm. And actually this is kind of related because longtime listeners know that our interactions with Jerry David DeCicca are actually through Eve Searles, who works at my law firm. I hired her years ago, I think she was my first hire. And I always, always told her that we hired her because she had a band. And I thought that was cool. And I just wanted to I just wanted to hire someone cool for the position. But it turned out she’s she’s really good.

Marlene Gebauer 0:53
She also happens to be really good at what she does.

Greg Lambert 0:55
Yeah, yeah. So I reached out to Eve, a couple of weeks ago, and told her we were doing this new series. And I kind of went with hat in hand said, Hey, can you and Jerry Do you know, just a quick intro for this like a five second intro. And then it took a couple of weeks, but they finally got down into their studio and send us this. And I know it’s a little bit different than our, you know, lots of drum intros going full acoustic but I absolutely love it.

Marlene Gebauer 1:33
Yeah, I think it was first of all, thank them so much for for doing this. It was I think it was it was it’s it’s really perfect for this series that we’re doing. And, you know, I liked that they collaborated on it together. I think that’s that’s terrific too. It’s just right in theme. So.

Greg Lambert 1:54
So thank you Eve and Jerry. So we’ll be thinking Eve and Jerry at the end of every show.

Marlene Gebauer 1:58
Yes, we will.

Greg Lambert 1:59
Okay, so well for our love and legal tech feature we have with us today. Priti Saraswat to the legal tech consulting manager at Baker Hostetler and b Saraswat. Chief Revenue Officer at Lupl. So Priti, welcome to the show.

Marlene Gebauer 2:16
And Ab,

Priti Saraswat 2:17
Thanks Greg and Marlene.

Greg Lambert 2:17
Ab, welcome to the show. I wanted to give them both a chance to talk.

Priti Saraswat 2:24
He’s just here for the fun.

Greg Lambert 2:25
Yeah. And for those that are watching on on video, Priti and I have a conversation about the lovely pink Yeti microphone.

Marlene Gebauer 2:35
I thought that was so cool. I’m like, nice. It’s like she’s wearing pink too. It’s like it coordinates. I think that’s terrific.

Greg Lambert 2:47
And, again, I think everyone that’s listened to the show already knows we’re doing we’re Priti much putting a wide definition on legal tech. But I think I think our guest today kind of fit that fit for legal legal tech. So we’ll let let’s jump into the conversation. Priti let’s start with you. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you do in the legal tech industry?

Priti Saraswat 3:15
Yeah, so I realized my title is probably a bit ominous, legal tech consulting manager. What does that mean? So I work at Baker Hostetler, the national law firm. And we have, I guess what most people refer to as an alternative legal service provider or ALSP. And within that team, it’s called IncuBaker. And within that team, I lead our client delivery services. So we provide services to our clients in different areas, privacy, Legal Operations, incident response. And we are hoping to expand out in those services. But essentially, we provide services to our clients to help them through process improvement process design, implementations of software, and other things like that.

Greg Lambert 4:02
Yeah. And do you do you work with Katherine Lowry? She’s been on the show before?

Priti Saraswat 4:07
I do. She is my manager and my partner in crime. So yeah.

Greg Lambert 4:13
This is gonna be great. And Ab, you want to tell us a little bit about what you do?

Ab Saraswat 4:19
Yeah, absolutely. So my day job is I’m the Chief Revenue Officer for a startup called Lupl. And we are a project management and task management tool aimed for lawyers so helping lawyers move away from managing their work in the chaos that is Microsoft Word tables, Excel and outlook and giving them a more modern way to to basically structure work and just subdue anxiety as much as possible. And separate to that my side job which is also legal tech related is I’m the founder of Fringe Legal, which is a newsletter and podcast, where I interview founders and I guess innovators and so on top of number of people from from Baker have been on before as well as a few others that you guys might know.

Greg Lambert 5:03
We let the competition in.

Marlene Gebauer 5:06
Now you see, I was gonna I was referring to

Ab Saraswat 5:09
me if you think I am

Marlene Gebauer 5:12
That’s so funny. I was gonna say it’s like we always welcome a fellow podcaster.

Greg Lambert 5:17
Marlene is much more on nicer side.

Marlene Gebauer 5:22
Nicer?

Greg Lambert 5:23
Sure. And before we before we jump in, I wanted to ask you a little bit what what does a Chief Revenue Officer do? I’ve seen that title

Ab Saraswat 5:33
before. Yeah. So it depends. But at Lupl, my role is focused on managing our go to market motion. So sales and our marketing. So you know how Lupl is perceived in the world. And then the customer success part. So adoption and everything else. But generally speaking, is just making sure that you have a go to market motion. So people are buying whatever you’re selling, and then making sure that you’re using it after the fact as well, and you get a good retention and adoption.

Greg Lambert 6:05
Thanks.

Marlene Gebauer 6:06
Okay, so this is the most fun question, I think of the whole podcast. So I’m glad I get to ask it. How did the two of you meet? And Priti? I’ll start with you.

Priti Saraswat 6:18
Oh, gosh. So I will say he’s probably the better one at storytelling. So I may just punt this one to him. So he can make it a bit more creative than I can do justice.

Ab Saraswat 6:29
I’ll tell the nicer version of this story. When we meet for drinks in real life one time, I’ll tell you guys. We met at law school. So both Priti. and if he can detect it from my accent, I’m from the UK, that we live in the US now. And we both trained to be barristers in the UK. As part of that, we had to do a bunch of extra curriculars, which you know, everyone has to do as a student. The one that we both chose was this, this program where you go into prisons and teach prisoners how to debate to, you know, give them different skills and so on. And we met as part of that as part of the training for that at a debate club. So my joke is, you know, we met, debating and arguing with each other. And, you know, has carried on since then. I don’t think from memory, we debated and if we did, I think I might have won. But that could just be my fuzzy memory.

Priti Saraswat 7:30
We did debate together, I remember very well. And we were in a group though. So we didn’t one on one debate. But we did her we were on opposing teams. And for the life of me, I can’t remember but I’m pretty sure it was at a team that one.

Ab Saraswat 7:47
Yeah, and we met there and then just started, just started hanging out. And then one thing led to another and then many years later, we were married. But to my credit, I realized the potential in finding someone so amazing and pretty. And I proposed to her I think within the first year. So like the same, you find the right thing, you know, just

Marlene Gebauer 8:13
Can we ask, Can we ask about the proposal?

Ab Saraswat 8:17
Yeah. Story favorite. So it was very well planned and predicated on all things predictable, like the weather in the UK. So I wanted to, I wanted to have a romantic proposal, as it were, we met as the Inns of Court in the UK. And they have these beautiful gardens, you know, these sort of super old historic buildings and I had gotten access to these gardens over the weekend. I say access it makes it sound grand. They unlocked them for me. I’ll t ake it. And I had gone to I had to wait until it snowed. And I’d gone and sort of written the message in the snow to ask her to marry me. And then I learned her in under sort of false pretense that hey, I need to do a photoshoot for this thing I’m working on Can you just be in sort of hold some items for me so I can take photographs? And yeah, that’s how it went down. I had my brother actually hiding in the bushes taking photos of all of these things. So we had a record and I was like, Oh, I really hope this goes well. Thankfully it did.

Marlene Gebauer 9:27
That’s a great story. Really.

Greg Lambert 9:30
Priti did you…

Priti Saraswat 9:30
I still have the pictures to this day. I will share them with you one day.

Greg Lambert 9:35
What was it a complete surprise or did you kind of know what was happening?

Priti Saraswat 9:40
Well, he told me to turn around and hold something so I checked my back to him while he already had knelt down next to this heart that he’d done. So it was actually a surprise because I genuinely thought it was a photo shoot and at the time I was doing a lot of photography work so did not seem weird to me at all, but it was a nice surprise. I actually didn’t see my brother in law hiding behind a tree until two minutes into theproposal. He did a good job of hiding.

Greg Lambert 10:08
So how long have the two of you been married?

Nine years this year? .

Alright. So have you guys worked together? Or how is it? You know, what’s what’s kind of been some of the best things about at least working in the same profession? Ab, do you want to take that one?

Ab Saraswat 10:27
I don’t think we had plans to work together, honestly. And had you asked me this. Eight years ago, I would have said, I really don’t want to work together with my spouse. But when we moved from, so I used to work at another legal tech company called Litera, which I’m sure many of your listeners now. I was at a startup that was acquisition number one for that company. And that was what drove and moved both Priti and I from the UK to the US and initially to New York. And when we were in Litera, I obviously worked through as part of the acquisition, and then Priti got a job there. I say, got a job that we myself and a few others really had to twist her arm to come and work for us, to be honest. But she worked there. And we worked at Litera together for I think, Priti three years? Yeah, and thankfully, we did very different roles. And I remember to this day, when I obviously referred Priti and into the company, I had a call from our head of HR. And she said, I’ve just so you know, I need to make sure that you understand that she can’t report to you, and I was like, I would not want that. And

Greg Lambert 11:48
Nobody wants that.,

Ab Saraswat 11:49
Yeah, no problems whatsoever. So we we work together in the same place. But I don’t know, we didn’t never really sort of work so closely together. In fact, funnily enough, when we were in the office, and when we moved to Chicago, most people I think, didn’t even know we were married.

Priti Saraswat 12:05
So we had the same last name. But people just thought it was a very popular last name. I did not think we were even related. And we would talk to each other in the office, but everyone just thought we were good friends. So it was actually quite funny. I think maybe six months before I left. That’s when people came up to us and said, Are you guys married? And it was purely because Ab decided to put our wedding picture on his desk, which was a lovely gesture, because at that point, everyone did a double take. And they were like, isn’t that Priti? And he’s like, yeah. So they came down. We were an open plan office, and they came over, they’re like, We just saw you on AB’s desk. Yeah, sure. That’s our wedding picture. We didn’t had no idea you guys were even married. So apparently, we do professional so well, that nobody realizes we’ve been together.

Greg Lambert 12:52
Yeah, well, that’s that’s got to be pretty hard to do with social events and, you know, holiday parties? Was it? Was it a kind of a conscious decision? Or did it just do you didn’t even think about it?

Ab Saraswat 13:04
I don’t, I don’t think we thought about it, we’re also very different people. I am much more extroverted than Priti, like, probably at least a magnitude difference. And that just means that, you know, we end up having different goals and priorities when we go out for social events or just hanging out and what we’re doing. So I think it just wasn’t a conscious thing. It just worked out that way. It just worked out that we weren’t together all the time. And at that point, I was traveling a lot as well. So actually, there was a lot of time where we weren’t physically together many of these events and so on. It wasn’t until actually I think last year, you and I went to ILTAcon together for the first time ever. And that was an interesting, I did joke to a lot of people so many of whom you’re listening. That was a joke when I told the people like Oh, you guys are married, just like yeah, we got married here. Today.

Marlene Gebauer 14:06
It’s, it’s, it’s funny, because in one of our other recordings in this series, they talk a little bit about, you know, business presentation, and then you know, you know, put a private presentation and it sounds like from this story that you know, you really had the the business presentation down pat to the point that nobody even knew. You know, our original guests, Cassie and [Alex], were saying everybody else seemed to know before they did, so it’s kind of opposite that way. That’s interesting.

Greg Lambert 14:38
Cassie and Alex.

Marlene Gebauer 14:39
Alex, sorry.

Ab Saraswat 14:42
They were also it seems like you know, their their love and romance was blossoming as they were working together. You know, we had that we had that part down. We were already married at that point. And so I think that’s probably a big difference for us as well.

Greg Lambert 14:54
Yeah, you you didn’t waste any time just

Priti Saraswat 15:00
I left it all in the UK.

Marlene Gebauer 15:04
So, you know, we’re talking about like the best we were talking about the best things being, you know, in the profession together. So, you know, flipping the question, you know, what, you know, what are the most challenging things about working together as as you have and better than also sort of being in the same industry?

Ab Saraswat 15:28
Priti, you can take this one.

Priti Saraswat 15:29
It’s going to be different for both of us. I think the probably the most dealt with a difficult is, I think, the Blurred Lines, there isn’t really any difference. And I think this is probably exacerbated by the pandemic, you know, being at home as well, all the time. But really, sometimes we try as much as we can not to talk about work. But essentially, because we’re in the same industry, it’s harder to do that. So that’s what I mean by the Blurred Lines, there isn’t too much difference between professional and personal. And then again, during the pandemic, just because we were in the same space as well, it became even more blurred in that sense. But I think we’ve tried to make as much of a conscious effort not to talk about it. Definitely when we go on vacations, it’s a you can’t talk about it subject. But at home, sometimes we do and that on the flip side is actually one of the benefits because sometimes I need to use Ab as a sounding board. And I don’t really have to explain the situation because he’s either seen it or been through it. Well, he just understands because he’s in the same industry. So it has its pros and cons. But I think I prefer it to be fair, because, yeah, I think just to having someone who understands the same challenges sometimes is really good. I think sometimes if they don’t, can cause friction, too, because you have to explain it. And you’re like you don’t really understand. And even when they give you advice, it’s not quite hitting the right mark. So I don’t have to go through any of that without him.

Ab Saraswat 17:01
And I’ll say it’s, it’s probably not as easy for me because I don’t have to sort of off switch, even when we’re on vacation to be like, Okay, let’s not talk about work. I am one of those people that we’re going to vacation in, let’s say London or something like that. It’s like, oh, maybe let me just contact this firm, to see if I can have a meeting with them or have dinner with a client or a friend, because many of them are friends now. So that is much harder for me, I also, I think I internally compartmentalize that rather than sort of within, within my actions. And I think probably Priti feels a lot more of this. I’m also a techie much more of a techie, I think than she is she can correct me. But that means that especially you know, as, as new technologies, and LLM and AI, all this stuff has been happening. Unfortunately, she has been the person who gets to just hear about it constantly from me. Constantly is never ending. And I think there’s been many, many, many occasions to like, no, don’t want to hear any more about AI today. You know, developing something or playing with something. And yeah, so I think those things are just finding a balance there. But all the positives from Priti are definitely there. Because I can imagine when we talk to friends and tell them roughly what we do, people are like legal tech? So is their illegal tech as well. As I can tell you that is the number one response I get. So glad I don’t have to sort of explain any of those details to to my partner, right? That’s really important. It just makes the whole communication process so much smoother.

Priti Saraswat 18:45
I probably say not techie, I’ll say who’s more nerdy about it so.

Ab Saraswat 18:50
Proudly

Priti Saraswat 18:51
We’re definitely in tech, obviously. And we have very technical jobs. But yeah, he definitely gets more in the weeds with it. And he’s definitely nods out a lot more than I do.

Greg Lambert 19:00
Yeah, Ab are you are you nerdy? Or are you geeky? Which Which do you think you are?

Ab Saraswat 19:06
I think I’m gonna take the nerdy over the geeky space on the origins of the word geek. Yeah, I just I can’t help myself as well. I joke a lot with people like you know, I’m not that technical. And I get a lot of shut the ‘F’ up responses to because I think compared to most i over time, when you can start writing in Python scripts people sort of dismissed not technical very quickly.

Greg Lambert 19:36
Yeah, yeah. So you were talking about you know, hanging out with friends and working in the the legal not illegal tech industry. So what what kind of reaction like when when you go to conferences, like you’re talking about ILTA. When you show up and you and people either figure out or you tell folks that the two of you are married, what kind of reaction do you get from others?

Ab Saraswat 20:01
I think it varies. I think there’s obviously some that know us and they’ve known us for a while. And that there it when when they do get to see us together, it’s good. I will say that because I’ve been in legal tech, quote unquote, for a bit longer than Priti has, oh, initially, when we were being introduced, it was, this is Priti, Ab’s wife. And now, I’m very glad it’s now I was at legal week, recently, and many, many people had introduced me say, Oh, this is Ab, Priti’s husband. That helps a lot. I’m so happy for that. But I think people are genuinely surprised. Probably also because I play pranks on them, as I mentioned earlier, sometimes doesn’t help. But it’s generally, I think they’re a little bit surprised. But yeah, they see us and people figure it out. I’ve had a handful of people, in fact, has happened LegalWeek, I’m not going to name the person to embarrass them. They asked me, Ab, Can I ask you something? Is Priti Saraswat, is she? Is she your wife? And I was like, yeah. Wow, did you guys, did you guys recently get married? I’m like, No. Nearly a decade. So I think we still hide it well.

Priti Saraswat 21:20
I guess I get different responses. I think mine. Ah, that’s really cool. I get more of that’s really cool, then, oh, I don’t know if I could work with my spouse, which I’ve also heard. But I think most people say it’s really cool. Because, again, from the perspective of understanding the industry, and just having someone who sees the same things, and has the same challenges I just had, a lot of people say, that’s really cool. And I would say probably to the point where we made that people at Litera, didn’t know that we weren’t necessarily married. I feel like a lot more people in the industry now. Or at least, you know, just people I speak to kind of make the connections. So I guess that’s a testament to us that they know us separately, but can also put that together. So that’s what I’ve also experienced more recently,

Greg Lambert 22:10
Well, in this podcast will be your nine year coming out story. So.

Ab Saraswat 22:15
Exactly, exactly. You know, in all seriousness, I think it for for both of us, it’s quite important that we we have similar roles, slightly different angles to and approaches to them, that we stand on our own two feet in a lot, right, we want to support each other thoroughly. But I wouldn’t want to be only known as Priti’s husband, and vice versa, I wouldn’t want her to be just known because of me. Because I think we both work really hard. And we do. You know, we have challenging roles, and that trying to bring about a lot of different impact and to own respective firms and organizations. So I think that’s really important as well, and it’s legal, so small compared to most places, that it’s easy for that line to get crossed into.

Marlene Gebauer 23:07
Okay, so second most fun question of the podcast. If, if, you know, how do you handle situations where you may not agree on how to handle a situation that you both face?

Ab Saraswat 23:23
And professionally mean? In work?

Marlene Gebauer 23:25
Yes, yes. Unless Unless you want to go further. That’s alright.

Ab Saraswat 23:33
This is turning to therapy session now. So I don’t think we’ve had issues, Priti where we’ve had to professionally agree or disagree about something, which probably is fortunate. I’d like to think we would handle it well. But I don’t think we’ve had that we’ve had to put it to the test so far. Right Priti?

Priti Saraswat 23:56
Hmm, I think there’s been a few discussions, I will say, you know, Ab kind of hit the nail on the head earlier, we’re very different. Which means we generally what I’ve noticed is we do have two different opinions about it. But I think it’s I think maybe it’s our debating background, who knows, maybe we’ve just learned to figure out how to deal with conflicts. But I think more often than not like I will share my opinion. And I’ll say this is kind of where I stand, he’ll kind of share his opinion. I think in the middle, we’ll have some similarities, like we both agree on certain areas. But ultimately, we kind of just sometimes agree to disagree, because we’re just coming at it from a different perspective. And we’ll kind of end the conversation there or we will just kind of end it out. Yeah, I see what you’re saying. And sometimes he’ll convince me to think the other way and vice versa. So we do always end up at a conclusion but yeah, to his point we don’t really fight about it. Probably a boring answer.

Marlene Gebauer 24:59
No, no, no out. It sounds like communication and discussion is very important. And that’s another theme that we are hearing across the board.

Greg Lambert 25:07
Yeah, it kind of leads into the next question, which is, and Ab, you highlighted earlier, you’re you’re pretty much an extrovert. And Priti, I think you’ll agree that you’re more on the introvert side. So when, when you’re out, either, you know, back home, or you’re out maybe together? How do you balance that? How do you know when, do you have a signal that you give when you say I’ve had enough? Like, let’s, let’s get out of here. Let’s not, let’s not continue this? How do you kind of handle that work-life balance?

Ab Saraswat 25:48
Yeah, I think, you know, it’s really funny, because I hadn’t seen Priti in that many, so just social occasions for work. Until recently, right, it’s well started opening up post COVID, and so on. And we ended up in a lot more events. And I think she, even though she’s a bit more introverted, I was, I was surprised how good she is outside sort of networking and just mingling with the crowd. And we do when we go to something together, we normally have a discussion beforehand, that okay, let’s, let’s stay until x point, and then we’ll see. So we normally said, this is the, this is the agreed upon limit, unless we’re both having so much fun. And unless we do that, and then we can decide, and that just helps a lot, because and usually, it’s not so much that it’s an extrovert introvert thing, it’s, we, you know, is the end of a long day, often, and it’s like, okay, how long do we want to be outside? This is already a 14 hour day now, how much more energy do we have to give? So that helps tremendously. I don’t, sometimes we have signals, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna give away a secret signals here. Sometimes you have signals too, but generally speaking, it’s the discussion ahead of time,

Priti Saraswat 27:12
Well, will go up to each other and will say, I think I’m gonna leave. So for example, again, as I’ve said, you know, I haven’t been in too many social situations, but ILTACon is probably a really good example. And we kind of want this up party. So sometimes we do do things separately. So I think there was one evening, I know, app went up before me. And so I just stayed, and I and I had more conversations. So sometimes we will just decide to kind of do our own thing as well, because we realized we were representing different companies, we’re coming at it from a different angle. And we’re networking in different ways. So sometimes, we will just kind of divide and conquer, if you will, right, and go our separate ways. And then as I’ve said other times, usually it’s one of us will go to the other one and say, you know, I’ve kind of had enough. Where are you at? At this point? Do you want to leave? And if we do, then we will otherwise, one of us will say I think I want to stay on. But if we go into a place where it’s not like ILTACon, you can’t just have a room to go to then yeah, we probably will make a judgment call at that point.

Ab Saraswat 28:18
We talk a lot.

Marlene Gebauer 28:22
So I’m kind of shifting back to the business angle. So what are the interesting things that the two of you are both working on now? And Ab, I’ll start with you?

Ab Saraswat 28:34
Yeah, so most of my time, energy spent on Lupl. So just building that out where, you know, as I mentioned, we’re a startup, we’ve been commercial for about two years. So we’re very much sort of hitting the hitting the ground running. So we’ve been busy just trying to make people aware of what we do, and trying to just get the value prop in front of people as much as possible. So at some point, I think Marlene, you and I have spoken before, for sure. Last year. But yeah, and that’s a big part of my focus. And what little time I have, I then spent tinkering with legal tech, speaking to founders, and just exploring what’s out there. So that’s just learning a lot. To be honest, I enjoy having conversations like these and just seeing what people are working on and building things every now and then. But no one should ever hire me as a developer, though. That’s a big mistake.

Marlene Gebauer 29:31
Priti, what are you working on?

Priti Saraswat 29:34
Oh, well, as I mentioned, by being part of an ALSP there’s always things moving. I think a lot of work that we do is based on the market. So really, whatever is grooving in the market is where we are also creating services for. So more recently, we’ve done a lot around privacy. For those of you that don’t know privacy regulations just keep on coming, especially if you’re in The US, there’s a different state every few months. So, yeah, we’ve been definitely busy over there. And then just really, as I said, anything that’s within them in the industry. So of course, if we would be wrong, not to mention Gen AI, I have seen those things. And there are other members in my team that work more, more focused on this area. But yeah, we are kind of just moving with the trends and what’s in the market. So kind of helping clients wherever they need that help, is the most exciting thing I’m doing that day.

Greg Lambert 30:35
So it’s good to have that flexibility to be able to meet those needs as they change. So, in our normal podcast episodes, we asked her a crystal ball question, and we’ve kind of morphed it into. I know we’re past Valentine’s Day, but we’ll still call it the St. Valentine’s question. And Priti I’ll throw this to you first. What advice would you give another couple who are considering working in the same field or working together in the same business? You know, what, what advice would you give?

Priti Saraswat 31:10
Don’t let the devil get you. No, I’m kidding. No, probably communication. As we’ve kind of established, actually, probably, I would say, I probably really realized this from preparing for this podcast. But I think it sounds like communication is key, I definitely think that you shouldn’t be afraid to be in the same industry. It can be quite empowering, having your partner be in a similar industry. But I also understand a lot of people don’t feel comfortable with that, because they want that kind of divide between personal and professional. But I think it’s really up to the couple, if you kind of focus on that. And you know that that’s something that you want to keep divided, then you can work through it. And so similarly, if you know that you want to blur the lines a little bit, or kind of use that person as a sounding more, then you can do that as well. So as long as the two of you know where to find that balance, I definitely don’t think anyone should be afraid. And there are definitely positives to having your partner be in the same industry for sure.

Greg Lambert 32:14
Ab, what about you?

Ab Saraswat 32:16
I think for me, I like the axiom”strong opinions loosely held.” And I think that’s probably no more important than in personal relationships, especially if you’re going to be working with that person and spending a lot of time with that individual as well. And that just means that you’re able to sort of go in, put your case forward and but at least have an open mind enough that you might sort of leave the door. And I think that’s, you know, for, for us, we don’t work directly together, but we’re in the same house. We’re a room apart right now. And it’s important that we can sort of go in and say, Okay, this is this is what my position is. And actually being very explicit, sometimes just saying, Look, I just need to vent or I just need to be able to share something or get feedback. Rather than okay, I’m going to tell you something, tell me what you think, you know, sometimes I frankly, don’t care what somebody else thinks I just need to get it off my chest. And I want to trust someone to be able to do that. And it’s challenging, especially because we’re not ever sharing anything that’s sensitive, confidential, and sort of, you know, something we’re not able to share. But we can still talk about the situation because there’s not too many people. As I mentioned, if I try and talk to other people who are outside of industry, they don’t understand. And so the new answers don’t quite make sense. So yes, just having that person to go to makes a big difference. But you got to go in there with open mind most of the time.

Greg Lambert 33:53
Awesome. Well, AB and Priti Saraswat. I want to thank you both for coming on The Geek in Review and sharing your love and legal tech story. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Ab Saraswat 34:04
Thanks for having us.

Priti Saraswat 34:06
Thanks.

Marlene Gebauer 34:06
And of course, thanks to all of you, our listeners for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoy the show, share it with a colleague. We’d love to hear from you. So reach out to us on social media. I can be found on LinkedIn or on X at @gebauerm and on Threads at @mgebauer66

Greg Lambert 34:24
and I can be reached on LinkedIn or you can find me on X glambertpod or threads at glambertpod.

Marlene Gebauer 34:33
And what I know we have we have to give credit.

Greg Lambert 34:38
No, no, no. No. Ab and Priti.

Marlene Gebauer 34:41
Sorry. Jumping. I’m jumping ahead. I’m so excited about the music. We’ve

Greg Lambert 34:46
only been doing this for six years. We’re still learning. We are a podcast startup. So Ab, if somebody wanted to learn more about you or Lupl, where would be a good place to look?

Ab Saraswat 34:59
if you want to connect with me on LinkedIn is the best place you can search for Ab Saraswat, you’ll find me and if you want to learn more about Lupl L U P L, lupo.com is the best place.

Greg Lambert 35:10
And Priti, how about you?

Priti Saraswat 35:12
Yeah, again, LinkedIn can find me under Priti Saraswat. I’m the one with the bright green background so you can’t miss me on LinkedIn

Marlene Gebauer 35:20
That’s a great background.

Priti Saraswat 35:23
Thank you. Or at Bakerlaw.com. You can also find me on the professional section I’m Priti Saraswat.

Marlene Gebauer 35:31
And we want to thank Eve Searles and Jerry David DeCicca for our music.

Greg Lambert 35:36
Yeah, thanks Eve and Jerry. All right. Thanks, everyone.

Marlene Gebauer 35:39
Thank you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Lenon shares intriguing findings from the report, highlighting a significant increase in productivity, billable hours, and revenue across the industry over the past eight years. However, a closer examination of mid-sized law firms (defined as those with 20 to 200 lawyers) reveals disparities in matter handling and productivity gains compared to smaller firms. Lenon explains how mid-sized firms maintain a consistent workload per lawyer by adjusting the ratio of lawyers to non-lawyer timekeepers based on demand. This adaptability showcases the strategic management of resources within mid-sized firms to optimize efficiency and service delivery.

The discussion further explores the impact of financial technology (FinTech) on law firms’ operational efficiency. Lenon illustrates how adopting new payment methods and technologies significantly improves firms’ collection rates and client payment experiences. Specifically, mid-sized firms that embrace FinTech and client-centered approaches see notable improvements in their financial health, underscoring the importance of innovation in enhancing legal services delivery.

Lenon also introduces Clio Duo, an in-house AI tool designed to enhance law firms’ access to and interaction with their own data. By providing a chat-based interface for exploring firm data, Clio Duo aims to streamline tasks and improve efficiency, allowing lawyers to focus on high-value work rather than administrative tasks. This development represents Clio’s commitment to leveraging technology to address the evolving needs of the legal profession.

Lenon predicts some of the challenges and opportunities facing the legal profession, particularly in relation to artificial intelligence (AI) and document creation tools. He speculates on the limitations imposed by traditional word processing applications like Microsoft Word and suggests that the future will likely see a paradigm shift towards more interactive and multi-dimensional tools for legal work. This shift, Lenon argues, could dramatically enhance productivity by integrating AI more seamlessly into the legal drafting process, moving beyond the static, page-focused approach of current software.

Throughout the conversation, Lenon’s insights underscore the dynamic interplay between technology and legal practice. As legal technology evolves, so too does the potential for law firms of all sizes to improve efficiency, client satisfaction, and ultimately, profitability. The episode illuminates the importance of data-driven decision-making and technological adaptation in the legal industry’s future. By embracing these tools and insights, law firms can better navigate the challenges of the modern legal landscape, ensuring they remain competitive and responsive to their clients’ needs.

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠

Contact Us: 

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads: @glambertpod or @gebauerm66
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠Transcript

Marlene Gebauer 0:07
Welcome to The Geek in Review. The podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal profession. I’m Marlene Gebauer,

Greg Lambert 0:14
And I’m Greg Lambert and we are wrapping up at legal week and we literally grabbed Joshua Lenon from Clio to come sit down with us, of course, longtime listeners may remember that as a collaborators collaborated on the superhuman law, podcast, and fun times.

Marlene Gebauer 0:36
Stickers probably worth money. No,

Greg Lambert 0:37
it is I still have a handful of as a poster as a poster hanging in my office. So. So Joshua, welcome to The Geek in Review. Thanks.

Joshua Lenon 0:46
It’s great to be here. I’m Joshua Lenon. I’m the lawyer in residence at Clio. So I have the most meetup title in legal technology

Greg Lambert 0:56
paid more in the length of title than and then in salary.

Joshua Lenon 1:00
It might it might be a tie. But I’ve been there a while. I think

Marlene Gebauer 1:04
you were just telling us before we went on air that you recently released, it was a midsize firm survey.

Joshua Lenon 1:10
Yeah, it’s not a survey. So Clio does an annual report called the legal Trends report. And it’s actually based on the aggregated anonymous usage data of Clio, the software, we build and is used by law firms. And so it’s 10s of 1000s of law firms all contributing, not their client files, not not their communications, but really just how they’re logging in, where are they practicing from? What types of features are they using? And we’ve been publishing that since 2016. We recently noticed that we actually are the most widely used practice management solution for mid sized law firms. About one in eight midsize law firms in the United States is using clear right now. And so

Greg Lambert 1:57
just so we know how, how do you define what a midsize is.

Joshua Lenon 2:00
Twenty plus lawyers. And then we did tops out around 200 for our analysis. Yeah.

Greg Lambert 2:07
So it can be two hundred?

Marlene Gebauer 2:09
It’s a big firm, that’s big. That’s a range. That’s a pretty big range.

Greg Lambert 2:13
So what do you find?

Joshua Lenon 2:15
Well, there was actually some really interesting information. So for our just industry wide report that we issued last October, we started taking a look back on the past eight years of data that we published, and we looked at the productivity gains that we’ve seen within law firms. For example, we saw a 25% increase, and the amount of cases that are being handled by timekeeper also a 35% increase in the number of billable hours recorded over the last eight years. And then a ridiculous jump in revenue, it was actually almost 170% Jump in hours billed and amounts collected. When we then apply that same analysis to the mid sized Law Firm, we actually saw some weird discrepancies when we were looking at it by timekeeper, the number the increase in matters, which was around again, 25%. For the everybody together, it’s only 1.2% for midsize law firms. And that just Yeah, Greg’s making a face and raising his eyebrow for for the listeners at home. That we’re not gonna be read at all. So we’re like, okay, we’re obviously looking at the wrong metric here, or we need to parse it a little further. So rather than looking at active timekeeper, we decided to break it down and see, is there a difference in the amount of lawyer to non lawyer timekeepers, that are working on a case. And for smaller law firms, it’s roughly around 30% of timekeepers and non lawyers. For mid sized law firms, it was closer to 48%. Well, it was even more interesting, and you’ll need to read the report to see this is that actual percentages is much more volatile. And so it’s not 48% All the time, but it drops down to 45. It goes up to 49 over the course of those eight years. And what we think we’re seeing is that these mid sized law firms are actually keeping a very consistent amount of workload per lawyer. But then when times get busy, they’re adding paralegals, legal secretaries. And they’re recording more time and doing more work. And then when things slow down, then we see again that ratio drops. So when we then narrowed our research to looking at responsible attorney, which is a field in Clio, every every matter in Clio has a responsible attorney, which in a mid sized law firm is probably going to be your lead attorney, maybe your your practice group lead or the originating attorney, but they’ll have multiple timekeepers In smaller firms, it’s probably just the attorney working the file. And when we limited the research to just responsible attorney, then we actually saw a difference. We saw that small firms have seen an 8% gain in matters over the last eight years, mid sized law firms jumped up to 7% When we look at responsible attorney, but they’re still lagging behind small firms when it comes to matter creation. And that was really interesting.

Marlene Gebauer 5:26
I’m curious when the survey comes out, and you know, your clients are looking at this, you know, what types of comments do they have? And actually, you know, what do you know, what actions do they take based on the data that is there?

Joshua Lenon 5:40
That’s actually a really great question. So I spoke. I spoke here at legal week with one of our customers, her name is Angela Lennon, no relation. And she’s from a midsize law firm called Koenig Dunn, and they spoke is on divorce. And they’re based out of Omaha, Nebraska. They’re a mid sized law firm. And they’ve actually been looking at the legal Trends data over the last several years and actually taking some really concrete steps with their law firms. And what’s interesting is it correlates to some of the things that we found in this year’s report as well. One of the big differences in mid sized law firms is they have a much higher utilization rate, they’re able to on average, Bill about half of their day, around 48% of their day and smaller law firms, it’s down in the 30 percentile. But when we look at mid sized law firms, they’re much more likely to give themselves a haircut that will be called the realization rate, which is the number of recorded billable hours that actually end up on the bill. They’re much more likely to reduce the amount that ends up on the bill. And we’re definitely seeing a big difference emerge in collection rates for mid sized law firms. We’re estimating because not all of December 2023 bills have been paid yet, but we’re estimating for 2023 midsize law firms are only going to have a collection rate of 83%.

Greg Lambert 7:03
How do you calculate and balance the bill time versus like a flat rate? Because I know like

Joshua Lenon 7:11
That’s actually yeah, that’s really tricky. We actually do have to filter out flat rates. Yeah. But something like 90% of all matters recorded in Clio are hourly. And so it really is a relatively small amount of data that gets filtered out. And so all of these numbers that I’m talking about are strictly looking at hourly. Right now. We are digging into flat fees. But that’s not a part of these numbers. Yeah,

Greg Lambert 7:41
Do you have any clients that are subscription, subscription based,

Joshua Lenon 7:46
We do have customers who are offering subscription based legal services to their clients. And that’s a really interesting model as well. And what’s made that possible, and I’m just going to do a call back to Angela linen is there taking advantage of new emerging FinTech options for law firms. So financial technology, like online payments, echecks, tap to pay on mobile phones, the ability for clients to pay using their Apple wallet, or their Google Wallet, all of these different ways now that financial technology is integrating into the consumer experience. What we’ve seen with subscription law firms and firms like Angela linens is that they are leaning into these types of payment avenues, and they’re seeing their collection rate just soar. So Angelou told the audience in our talk that her collection rate for her firm is in the high 90% is percentiles. So they’re I think she said 90%. Yeah, convenience really is king. The other thing that they’re doing that helps with that, as well as they also use those payment options and accept Vance fee deposits into trust. And our own research has shown that when you’re doing that, it actually increases not just your collection rate, but the firm’s realization rate are less likely to give themselves that haircut because they know the money’s there. That’s right. Yeah. And so, but interestingly, you don’t see client pushback on that. When that realization rate is higher, so they get a larger bill. And they’re paying a larger percentage of their total bills. Right, but there’s not seemingly no backlash.

Marlene Gebauer 9:33
Yeah, imagine it’s agreed upon number and it’s like, okay, this is what we’re gonna do. And they ended they, the client plans it in.

Joshua Lenon 9:40
Yeah. And so mid sized law firms and they’re, they’re actually a much smaller percentage of law firms in general, leaning into this financial technology, but in our own data, the ones that are leaning into financial technology and client experience and consumer convenience. They’re actually getting paid twice as fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Greg Lambert 10:00
Time on recovery is very important. Are you guys building some of these? Are you enabling the fintech?

Joshua Lenon 10:09
Yeah, actually, we we’ve actually built our own payment processing solution. We call it Clio payments. And it does a lot of the things that I’ve talked about, like accept fees into into trust. Interestingly, we also have a mobile app for clients. And when mid sized law firms are using that app with their clients, so there’s an app for lawyers, and there’s an app for clients, we find that they’re getting paid faster, too. And they’re even seeing a decrease in their collection lockup, which is the amount of money that’s been billed, but just is locked away and somebody else’s bank account. Yeah. And so we didn’t expect a client mobile app to improve the speed of client payment and collections. But it really did it drops, it was the most significant decrease in lockup for midsize law firms. So there’s a lot to unpack, not just in in our general legal transport, but then when you break it down by firm segment. So this is really exciting for us. We’re going to be doing a solo version later this year as well, taking a look at again, some of the similar similar pieces of information. But now how is it different for a solo law firm?

Marlene Gebauer 11:30
Would you say there are any lessons to be learned for large law based on based on the results?

Joshua Lenon 11:37
I think large law actually is looking at small law and taking a lot of the lessons when we read other research into like the am law 100. And the amount that they’re announcing that they’re going to invest in technology, right? They’re easily eclipsing what’s being spent by mid sized law firms right now per lawyer, right. And when we look at, again, solo small law firms, we see that they are much more likely to leverage all of the features of the technology they have in Clio, rather than just a portion of it. And so I think we’re seeing kind of the middle child of midsize law firms who are successful, there’s no doubt about it. Right? Their revenue has gone up significantly over the last number of years. But it’s not they’re not as good as they can be. Because they’re not leveraging technology, like the smaller law firms to its maximum potential. And they’re not investing in technology, like these big law firms. And so the question is going to be is, is how long can that continue?

Greg Lambert 12:47
Well, I noticed that unlike a lot of companies out on the floor, you did not change your name to clio.ai this year.

Joshua Lenon 12:54
No.

Greg Lambert 12:57
Seems to be a trend. Yeah. But I know that you are looking at integrating AI tools, of course, AI yourself not new. Yeah, the generative AI is kind of what everyone’s thinking about now. So what when people stop by your booth? What are you showing them that’s on the horizon?

Joshua Lenon 13:15
So, we are building our own in house AI tool. We’re calling it Clio Duo. And it’s going to be a chat based interface, allowing a law firm to explore their own firm data. So rather than it being ChatGPT, where you can just ask it anything, right? And then it comes back with these hallucinated answers is going to be a chat based interface. But instead, it will look for answers within your own law firm data, and try and raise things from that. So it could be that you asked a question like, hey, what was that address that my client lived out three years ago? And because you have their their documents loaded in writing go, Oh, here’s a document from three years ago, with your client and an address. It’s just the one you want. Um, you can also ask it about firm performance, like, How many hours did my paralegal build this month? What’s our utilization rate for the firm? And you can give you that type of information back. And as we we learn more about what law lawyers want from that type of chat based interface, then we’re going to take a look at potentially suggestions. Right. So when somebody uploads, say, a tranche of discovery, right, the AI might recommend, hey, do you want me to go in in bait stamp some of these documents? Or do you want me to potentially draft like responses based on the information that we already have? Like, what was that clients address from three years ago? Right, if that’s a question, you could surface that data for you. And I think really excited about that as our future functionality, because I think that’s where we really Start to leapfrog into massive productivity gains to the benefit of the lawyer and the client. So it’s not taking work away from the lawyer. It’s taking drudgery away from the lawyer so that they can work.

Marlene Gebauer 15:15
So I was curious, it’s like, how are you addressing client security concerns about?

Joshua Lenon 15:21
So that’s actually a really great question. The issues with it, have to part it’s part technical. And I’m a lawyer, that’s lawyer in residence. So I will badly explain the technical concepts to the best of my lay understanding. But there’s also contractual and that’s always been the case with legal technology is you need to rely on both contractual and technological constraints on your vendors, in order to protect client confidentiality. So in the model that we’re looking at, there’s basically two portions that are very important for it to function. There’s the LLM the Large Language Models, right. And that is really based on a wider set of data, mostly done by these AI companies, right? They scrape the web. From that they build these predictive models on how to answer questions, how to converse, in that chat, like format, right. And potentially, what type of words string together well, whether or not they’re true is outside the bounds of the LLM. And then on the other side, you have what the people are calling the corpus, which is the body of knowledge that you can direct that LLM at and say, when you answer the question has to be from this corpus. And for Clio’s, AI tool, Clio Duo, the corpus will be the customers files themselves. And so the only people looking at that are going to be the lawyer and their clients, and the LLM, processing it on behalf of them both, right? It’s a directed tool. It’s not something that Clio is doing in the background all the time. And so it’s just like, the search field in any practice management, right? I want to look up John Smith, show me John Smith. That’s a processing, it doesn’t change the data, it doesn’t extract it to be used by another firm. It just finds John Smith for him. And here, we actually see the Clio duo AI tool working very much in that same way. Look at my data, do something with it, but only for me and my client.

Greg Lambert 17:39
So crystal ball question. Yes, Crystal? Ball. Yeah. So I think you know, the drill here, so peer into your crystal ball for us. And over the next two to five years? What are you seeing as a as a change or challenge that people should be aware of?

Joshua Lenon 17:59
I think a lot of AI is going to be limited by the Microsoft Word interface. Explain that. So anyone who has practiced law, I’m going to use it through the Microsoft interface is that you spend the majority of your time creating documents, and the most widely spread word processing tool, by far is Microsoft Word. I’m old school, I still have a preference for WordPerfect. I don’t use it because nobody else does either. Right. And so the need for lawyers to have those productivity gains from Ai, will most often then go into Microsoft Word. Find that clients address from three years ago, right? Okay, so now I put it in the on answer to an interrogatory that I’m I’ve been drafting or now I put it in as part of a fact pattern in a pleading, or now I’m putting that in as proof of an alibi from a crime three years ago, right. But most of those things are gonna be done in Microsoft Word. And there’s only so much we can cram in there. So at some point, we’re going to have to wrestle with the fact that Microsoft Word is limiting productivity for lawyers. And what comes next is going to be, I think, just a game changer. It’s almost unfathomable to see the shift from this blank page that we’re so used to staring out on our screen to something that’s much more interactive, something that’s guided, something that enables you to have multiple data sources open at the same time in a user friendly way. Such that we’re not just scrolling the infinite white page of Microsoft Word. Yeah. So that’s my crystal ball, Microsoft words in the crosshairs.

Greg Lambert 19:47
And the thing that immediately popped in my head is, is Clippy going to be the new copilot?

Joshua Lenon 19:54
I know, right?

Greg Lambert 19:55
I think it makes sense to me clip,

Marlene Gebauer 19:57
we saw the meme could be like, it’s so

Joshua Lenon 19:59
As our other that’s coming back around again, right? The universally reviled Hey, it looks like you’re drafting a letter. Do you want me to help you? Yeah, yeah. But now, we might actually have a tool that can help us. So do we bring back Clippy? Yeah.

Greg Lambert 20:15
I’m pro Clippy.

Joshua Lenon 20:17
Me too.

I think the user experience was poor. I don’t I don’t need a mascot.

Marlene Gebauer 20:22
I was like it.

Joshua Lenon 20:25
Agree to disagree.

Marlene Gebauer 20:27
I know. It was fun. It was fun.

Greg Lambert 20:29
Well, Joshua Lenon, from from Clio, thank you very much for letting us grab you right off the street. And so you down in front of the mic.

Joshua Lenon 20:38
Yeah, just came by to say hi. But this has been a great conversation, think I’d be careful what you do.

Marlene Gebauer 20:45
And of course, thanks to all of you, our listeners for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoyed the show, share it with a colleague. We’d love to hear from you. So reach out to us on social media. I can be found on LinkedIn or on X at @gebauerm and on Threads at at @mgebauer66

Greg Lambert 21:04
I can be reached on LinkedIn or you can go to X which we were talking about getting less and less on there. But I am there you can reach me at @glambert. So Joshua, if someone wants to learn more about Clio or reach out to you, what’s the best way?

Joshua Lenon 21:19
Oh, great. I’m on LinkedIn as well. Joshua Lenon, l e n o n. I’m actually trying out a new social media site called blue sky. Yes. Oh, again, vendor, Joshua Lenon. there as well. And if they want to learn more about Clio and then legal Trends report for mid sized law firms, please go by clio.com that clio.com/enterprise and that will take them right to our our, we actually have a mini site now focusing on mid sized law firms, and all the great resources that we can provide them as a software company, but also these free reports like the legal Trends Report.

Marlene Gebauer 21:55
Very cool. And as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David DeCicca. Thank you, Jerry.

Greg Lambert 22:00
Thanks, Jerry. All right. Thanks, guys.

Lenon shares intriguing findings from the report, highlighting a significant increase in productivity, billable hours, and revenue across the industry over the past eight years. However, a closer examination of mid-sized law firms (defined as those with 20 to 200 lawyers) reveals disparities in matter handling and productivity gains compared to smaller firms. Lenon explains how mid-sized firms maintain a consistent workload per lawyer by adjusting the ratio of lawyers to non-lawyer timekeepers based on demand. This adaptability showcases the strategic management of resources within mid-sized firms to optimize efficiency and service delivery.

The discussion further explores the impact of financial technology (FinTech) on law firms’ operational efficiency. Lenon illustrates how adopting new payment methods and technologies significantly improves firms’ collection rates and client payment experiences. Specifically, mid-sized firms that embrace FinTech and client-centered approaches see notable improvements in their financial health, underscoring the importance of innovation in enhancing legal services delivery.

Lenon also introduces Clio Duo, an in-house AI tool designed to enhance law firms’ access to and interaction with their own data. By providing a chat-based interface for exploring firm data, Clio Duo aims to streamline tasks and improve efficiency, allowing lawyers to focus on high-value work rather than administrative tasks. This development represents Clio’s commitment to leveraging technology to address the evolving needs of the legal profession.

Lenon predicts some of the challenges and opportunities facing the legal profession, particularly in relation to artificial intelligence (AI) and document creation tools. He speculates on the limitations imposed by traditional word processing applications like Microsoft Word and suggests that the future will likely see a paradigm shift towards more interactive and multi-dimensional tools for legal work. This shift, Lenon argues, could dramatically enhance productivity by integrating AI more seamlessly into the legal drafting process, moving beyond the static, page-focused approach of current software.

Throughout the conversation, Lenon’s insights underscore the dynamic interplay between technology and legal practice. As legal technology evolves, so too does the potential for law firms of all sizes to improve efficiency, client satisfaction, and ultimately, profitability. The episode illuminates the importance of data-driven decision-making and technological adaptation in the legal industry’s future. By embracing these tools and insights, law firms can better navigate the challenges of the modern legal landscape, ensuring they remain competitive and responsive to their clients’ needs.

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠

Contact Us: 

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads: @glambertpod or @gebauerm66
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠Transcript

Marlene Gebauer 0:07
Welcome to The Geek in Review. The podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal profession. I’m Marlene Gebauer,

Greg Lambert 0:14
And I’m Greg Lambert and we are wrapping up at legal week and we literally grabbed Joshua Lenon from Clio to come sit down with us, of course, longtime listeners may remember that as a collaborators collaborated on the superhuman law, podcast, and fun times.

Marlene Gebauer 0:36
Stickers probably worth money. No,

Greg Lambert 0:37
it is I still have a handful of as a poster as a poster hanging in my office. So. So Joshua, welcome to The Geek in Review. Thanks.

Joshua Lenon 0:46
It’s great to be here. I’m Joshua Lenon. I’m the lawyer in residence at Clio. So I have the most meetup title in legal technology

Greg Lambert 0:56
paid more in the length of title than and then in salary.

Joshua Lenon 1:00
It might it might be a tie. But I’ve been there a while. I think

Marlene Gebauer 1:04
you were just telling us before we went on air that you recently released, it was a midsize firm survey.

Joshua Lenon 1:10
Yeah, it’s not a survey. So Clio does an annual report called the legal Trends report. And it’s actually based on the aggregated anonymous usage data of Clio, the software, we build and is used by law firms. And so it’s 10s of 1000s of law firms all contributing, not their client files, not not their communications, but really just how they’re logging in, where are they practicing from? What types of features are they using? And we’ve been publishing that since 2016. We recently noticed that we actually are the most widely used practice management solution for mid sized law firms. About one in eight midsize law firms in the United States is using clear right now. And so

Greg Lambert 1:57
just so we know how, how do you define what a midsize is.

Joshua Lenon 2:00
Twenty plus lawyers. And then we did tops out around 200 for our analysis. Yeah.

Greg Lambert 2:07
So it can be two hundred?

Marlene Gebauer 2:09
It’s a big firm, that’s big. That’s a range. That’s a pretty big range.

Greg Lambert 2:13
So what do you find?

Joshua Lenon 2:15
Well, there was actually some really interesting information. So for our just industry wide report that we issued last October, we started taking a look back on the past eight years of data that we published, and we looked at the productivity gains that we’ve seen within law firms. For example, we saw a 25% increase, and the amount of cases that are being handled by timekeeper also a 35% increase in the number of billable hours recorded over the last eight years. And then a ridiculous jump in revenue, it was actually almost 170% Jump in hours billed and amounts collected. When we then apply that same analysis to the mid sized Law Firm, we actually saw some weird discrepancies when we were looking at it by timekeeper, the number the increase in matters, which was around again, 25%. For the everybody together, it’s only 1.2% for midsize law firms. And that just Yeah, Greg’s making a face and raising his eyebrow for for the listeners at home. That we’re not gonna be read at all. So we’re like, okay, we’re obviously looking at the wrong metric here, or we need to parse it a little further. So rather than looking at active timekeeper, we decided to break it down and see, is there a difference in the amount of lawyer to non lawyer timekeepers, that are working on a case. And for smaller law firms, it’s roughly around 30% of timekeepers and non lawyers. For mid sized law firms, it was closer to 48%. Well, it was even more interesting, and you’ll need to read the report to see this is that actual percentages is much more volatile. And so it’s not 48% All the time, but it drops down to 45. It goes up to 49 over the course of those eight years. And what we think we’re seeing is that these mid sized law firms are actually keeping a very consistent amount of workload per lawyer. But then when times get busy, they’re adding paralegals, legal secretaries. And they’re recording more time and doing more work. And then when things slow down, then we see again that ratio drops. So when we then narrowed our research to looking at responsible attorney, which is a field in Clio, every every matter in Clio has a responsible attorney, which in a mid sized law firm is probably going to be your lead attorney, maybe your your practice group lead or the originating attorney, but they’ll have multiple timekeepers In smaller firms, it’s probably just the attorney working the file. And when we limited the research to just responsible attorney, then we actually saw a difference. We saw that small firms have seen an 8% gain in matters over the last eight years, mid sized law firms jumped up to 7% When we look at responsible attorney, but they’re still lagging behind small firms when it comes to matter creation. And that was really interesting.

Marlene Gebauer 5:26
I’m curious when the survey comes out, and you know, your clients are looking at this, you know, what types of comments do they have? And actually, you know, what do you know, what actions do they take based on the data that is there?

Joshua Lenon 5:40
That’s actually a really great question. So I spoke. I spoke here at legal week with one of our customers, her name is Angela Lennon, no relation. And she’s from a midsize law firm called Koenig Dunn, and they spoke is on divorce. And they’re based out of Omaha, Nebraska. They’re a mid sized law firm. And they’ve actually been looking at the legal Trends data over the last several years and actually taking some really concrete steps with their law firms. And what’s interesting is it correlates to some of the things that we found in this year’s report as well. One of the big differences in mid sized law firms is they have a much higher utilization rate, they’re able to on average, Bill about half of their day, around 48% of their day and smaller law firms, it’s down in the 30 percentile. But when we look at mid sized law firms, they’re much more likely to give themselves a haircut that will be called the realization rate, which is the number of recorded billable hours that actually end up on the bill. They’re much more likely to reduce the amount that ends up on the bill. And we’re definitely seeing a big difference emerge in collection rates for mid sized law firms. We’re estimating because not all of December 2023 bills have been paid yet, but we’re estimating for 2023 midsize law firms are only going to have a collection rate of 83%.

Greg Lambert 7:03
How do you calculate and balance the bill time versus like a flat rate? Because I know like

Joshua Lenon 7:11
That’s actually yeah, that’s really tricky. We actually do have to filter out flat rates. Yeah. But something like 90% of all matters recorded in Clio are hourly. And so it really is a relatively small amount of data that gets filtered out. And so all of these numbers that I’m talking about are strictly looking at hourly. Right now. We are digging into flat fees. But that’s not a part of these numbers. Yeah,

Greg Lambert 7:41
Do you have any clients that are subscription, subscription based,

Joshua Lenon 7:46
We do have customers who are offering subscription based legal services to their clients. And that’s a really interesting model as well. And what’s made that possible, and I’m just going to do a call back to Angela linen is there taking advantage of new emerging FinTech options for law firms. So financial technology, like online payments, echecks, tap to pay on mobile phones, the ability for clients to pay using their Apple wallet, or their Google Wallet, all of these different ways now that financial technology is integrating into the consumer experience. What we’ve seen with subscription law firms and firms like Angela linens is that they are leaning into these types of payment avenues, and they’re seeing their collection rate just soar. So Angelou told the audience in our talk that her collection rate for her firm is in the high 90% is percentiles. So they’re I think she said 90%. Yeah, convenience really is king. The other thing that they’re doing that helps with that, as well as they also use those payment options and accept Vance fee deposits into trust. And our own research has shown that when you’re doing that, it actually increases not just your collection rate, but the firm’s realization rate are less likely to give themselves that haircut because they know the money’s there. That’s right. Yeah. And so, but interestingly, you don’t see client pushback on that. When that realization rate is higher, so they get a larger bill. And they’re paying a larger percentage of their total bills. Right, but there’s not seemingly no backlash.

Marlene Gebauer 9:33
Yeah, imagine it’s agreed upon number and it’s like, okay, this is what we’re gonna do. And they ended they, the client plans it in.

Joshua Lenon 9:40
Yeah. And so mid sized law firms and they’re, they’re actually a much smaller percentage of law firms in general, leaning into this financial technology, but in our own data, the ones that are leaning into financial technology and client experience and consumer convenience. They’re actually getting paid twice as fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Greg Lambert 10:00
Time on recovery is very important. Are you guys building some of these? Are you enabling the fintech?

Joshua Lenon 10:09
Yeah, actually, we we’ve actually built our own payment processing solution. We call it Clio payments. And it does a lot of the things that I’ve talked about, like accept fees into into trust. Interestingly, we also have a mobile app for clients. And when mid sized law firms are using that app with their clients, so there’s an app for lawyers, and there’s an app for clients, we find that they’re getting paid faster, too. And they’re even seeing a decrease in their collection lockup, which is the amount of money that’s been billed, but just is locked away and somebody else’s bank account. Yeah. And so we didn’t expect a client mobile app to improve the speed of client payment and collections. But it really did it drops, it was the most significant decrease in lockup for midsize law firms. So there’s a lot to unpack, not just in in our general legal transport, but then when you break it down by firm segment. So this is really exciting for us. We’re going to be doing a solo version later this year as well, taking a look at again, some of the similar similar pieces of information. But now how is it different for a solo law firm?

Marlene Gebauer 11:30
Would you say there are any lessons to be learned for large law based on based on the results?

Joshua Lenon 11:37
I think large law actually is looking at small law and taking a lot of the lessons when we read other research into like the am law 100. And the amount that they’re announcing that they’re going to invest in technology, right? They’re easily eclipsing what’s being spent by mid sized law firms right now per lawyer, right. And when we look at, again, solo small law firms, we see that they are much more likely to leverage all of the features of the technology they have in Clio, rather than just a portion of it. And so I think we’re seeing kind of the middle child of midsize law firms who are successful, there’s no doubt about it. Right? Their revenue has gone up significantly over the last number of years. But it’s not they’re not as good as they can be. Because they’re not leveraging technology, like the smaller law firms to its maximum potential. And they’re not investing in technology, like these big law firms. And so the question is going to be is, is how long can that continue?

Greg Lambert 12:47
Well, I noticed that unlike a lot of companies out on the floor, you did not change your name to clio.ai this year.

Joshua Lenon 12:54
No.

Greg Lambert 12:57
Seems to be a trend. Yeah. But I know that you are looking at integrating AI tools, of course, AI yourself not new. Yeah, the generative AI is kind of what everyone’s thinking about now. So what when people stop by your booth? What are you showing them that’s on the horizon?

Joshua Lenon 13:15
So, we are building our own in house AI tool. We’re calling it Clio Duo. And it’s going to be a chat based interface, allowing a law firm to explore their own firm data. So rather than it being ChatGPT, where you can just ask it anything, right? And then it comes back with these hallucinated answers is going to be a chat based interface. But instead, it will look for answers within your own law firm data, and try and raise things from that. So it could be that you asked a question like, hey, what was that address that my client lived out three years ago? And because you have their their documents loaded in writing go, Oh, here’s a document from three years ago, with your client and an address. It’s just the one you want. Um, you can also ask it about firm performance, like, How many hours did my paralegal build this month? What’s our utilization rate for the firm? And you can give you that type of information back. And as we we learn more about what law lawyers want from that type of chat based interface, then we’re going to take a look at potentially suggestions. Right. So when somebody uploads, say, a tranche of discovery, right, the AI might recommend, hey, do you want me to go in in bait stamp some of these documents? Or do you want me to potentially draft like responses based on the information that we already have? Like, what was that clients address from three years ago? Right, if that’s a question, you could surface that data for you. And I think really excited about that as our future functionality, because I think that’s where we really Start to leapfrog into massive productivity gains to the benefit of the lawyer and the client. So it’s not taking work away from the lawyer. It’s taking drudgery away from the lawyer so that they can work.

Marlene Gebauer 15:15
So I was curious, it’s like, how are you addressing client security concerns about?

Joshua Lenon 15:21
So that’s actually a really great question. The issues with it, have to part it’s part technical. And I’m a lawyer, that’s lawyer in residence. So I will badly explain the technical concepts to the best of my lay understanding. But there’s also contractual and that’s always been the case with legal technology is you need to rely on both contractual and technological constraints on your vendors, in order to protect client confidentiality. So in the model that we’re looking at, there’s basically two portions that are very important for it to function. There’s the LLM the Large Language Models, right. And that is really based on a wider set of data, mostly done by these AI companies, right? They scrape the web. From that they build these predictive models on how to answer questions, how to converse, in that chat, like format, right. And potentially, what type of words string together well, whether or not they’re true is outside the bounds of the LLM. And then on the other side, you have what the people are calling the corpus, which is the body of knowledge that you can direct that LLM at and say, when you answer the question has to be from this corpus. And for Clio’s, AI tool, Clio Duo, the corpus will be the customers files themselves. And so the only people looking at that are going to be the lawyer and their clients, and the LLM, processing it on behalf of them both, right? It’s a directed tool. It’s not something that Clio is doing in the background all the time. And so it’s just like, the search field in any practice management, right? I want to look up John Smith, show me John Smith. That’s a processing, it doesn’t change the data, it doesn’t extract it to be used by another firm. It just finds John Smith for him. And here, we actually see the Clio duo AI tool working very much in that same way. Look at my data, do something with it, but only for me and my client.

Greg Lambert 17:39
So crystal ball question. Yes, Crystal? Ball. Yeah. So I think you know, the drill here, so peer into your crystal ball for us. And over the next two to five years? What are you seeing as a as a change or challenge that people should be aware of?

Joshua Lenon 17:59
I think a lot of AI is going to be limited by the Microsoft Word interface. Explain that. So anyone who has practiced law, I’m going to use it through the Microsoft interface is that you spend the majority of your time creating documents, and the most widely spread word processing tool, by far is Microsoft Word. I’m old school, I still have a preference for WordPerfect. I don’t use it because nobody else does either. Right. And so the need for lawyers to have those productivity gains from Ai, will most often then go into Microsoft Word. Find that clients address from three years ago, right? Okay, so now I put it in the on answer to an interrogatory that I’m I’ve been drafting or now I put it in as part of a fact pattern in a pleading, or now I’m putting that in as proof of an alibi from a crime three years ago, right. But most of those things are gonna be done in Microsoft Word. And there’s only so much we can cram in there. So at some point, we’re going to have to wrestle with the fact that Microsoft Word is limiting productivity for lawyers. And what comes next is going to be, I think, just a game changer. It’s almost unfathomable to see the shift from this blank page that we’re so used to staring out on our screen to something that’s much more interactive, something that’s guided, something that enables you to have multiple data sources open at the same time in a user friendly way. Such that we’re not just scrolling the infinite white page of Microsoft Word. Yeah. So that’s my crystal ball, Microsoft words in the crosshairs.

Greg Lambert 19:47
And the thing that immediately popped in my head is, is Clippy going to be the new copilot?

Joshua Lenon 19:54
I know, right?

Greg Lambert 19:55
I think it makes sense to me clip,

Marlene Gebauer 19:57
we saw the meme could be like, it’s so

Joshua Lenon 19:59
As our other that’s coming back around again, right? The universally reviled Hey, it looks like you’re drafting a letter. Do you want me to help you? Yeah, yeah. But now, we might actually have a tool that can help us. So do we bring back Clippy? Yeah.

Greg Lambert 20:15
I’m pro Clippy.

Joshua Lenon 20:17
Me too.

I think the user experience was poor. I don’t I don’t need a mascot.

Marlene Gebauer 20:22
I was like it.

Joshua Lenon 20:25
Agree to disagree.

Marlene Gebauer 20:27
I know. It was fun. It was fun.

Greg Lambert 20:29
Well, Joshua Lenon, from from Clio, thank you very much for letting us grab you right off the street. And so you down in front of the mic.

Joshua Lenon 20:38
Yeah, just came by to say hi. But this has been a great conversation, think I’d be careful what you do.

Marlene Gebauer 20:45
And of course, thanks to all of you, our listeners for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoyed the show, share it with a colleague. We’d love to hear from you. So reach out to us on social media. I can be found on LinkedIn or on X at @gebauerm and on Threads at at @mgebauer66

Greg Lambert 21:04
I can be reached on LinkedIn or you can go to X which we were talking about getting less and less on there. But I am there you can reach me at @glambert. So Joshua, if someone wants to learn more about Clio or reach out to you, what’s the best way?

Joshua Lenon 21:19
Oh, great. I’m on LinkedIn as well. Joshua Lenon, l e n o n. I’m actually trying out a new social media site called blue sky. Yes. Oh, again, vendor, Joshua Lenon. there as well. And if they want to learn more about Clio and then legal Trends report for mid sized law firms, please go by clio.com that clio.com/enterprise and that will take them right to our our, we actually have a mini site now focusing on mid sized law firms, and all the great resources that we can provide them as a software company, but also these free reports like the legal Trends Report.

Marlene Gebauer 21:55
Very cool. And as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David DeCicca. Thank you, Jerry.

Greg Lambert 22:00
Thanks, Jerry. All right. Thanks, guys.

Courtroom5 stands out in the Justice Tech sector by offering a unique platform designed to educate, encourage, and empower individuals representing themselves in court. Sonja, as CEO, orchestrates a broad range of responsibilities, from technical leadership to marketing efforts, while Debra, wielding her expertise as a PhD Librarian and CTO, focuses on managing the extensive content that forms the backbone of Courtroom5’s service. Their combined efforts have earned Courtroom5 recognition and awards, underscoring the impact of their work on providing accessible legal support to those without formal legal representation.

The story of how Sonja and Debra met over a game of spades in Durham, North Carolina, adds a personal touch to their professional narrative, highlighting the serendipitous beginnings of their relationship and eventual collaboration. This personal bond, fortified by shared experiences and a mutual understanding of being “screwed over in court,” has been instrumental in shaping the vision and mission of Courtroom5. Their complementary skills – Sonja’s technical acumen and Debra’s information management prowess – enable them to tackle the challenges of running a startup while fostering a shared passion for justice and empowerment.

Working together, however, is not without its challenges. Sonja and Debra candidly discuss the continuous effort required to balance their professional and personal lives, emphasizing the necessity of intentional scheduling and the discipline to separate business discussions from personal time. This ongoing negotiation between their roles as business partners and life partners is a testament to their commitment to both their relationship and their venture.

Their advice to other couples considering a similar path is poignant: prioritize the personal relationship, ensure a solid foundation before embarking on a business venture together, and select a partner who can significantly contribute to the business’s success. Sonja and Debra’s story is not just about love and legal tech; it’s a narrative of resilience, mutual respect, and the unyielding belief in their mission to democratize legal support. Their story is an inspiring reminder of the power of partnership in navigating the challenges and triumphs of entrepreneurship.

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠

Contact Us: 

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads: @glambertpod or @gebauerm66
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠Transcript

Marlene Gebauer 0:05
Welcome to The Geek in Review. The podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal profession. I’m Marlene Gebauer, Greg is not going to be on today. So I’m just gonna get started, we have our second Love and Legal Tech feature. And today we have with us, Sonja Ebron, who is the CEO of Courtroom5, and Debra Slone, who’s the CTO of Courtroom5. So Sonja, and Debra, welcome to The Geek in Review.

Sonja Ebron 0:30
Great to be with you.

Debra Slone 0:32
It’s good to be here.

Marlene Gebauer 0:34
So, you know, just for clarification for the audience regarding this series of discussions, you know, we’re going to use the term Legal Tech as the standard phrase for the discussion. But we’re using a very broad definition I’ve mentioned to both of you to include innovative processes, like you know, practice strategies, process improvement, project management, and you know, all kinds of other innovations that may not fall into the pure technology definition. So, you know, we don’t want anybody calling us later and saying, that’s not really technology. Right. So. So, let’s, let’s get started, you know, what do you both do in legal tech space?

Sonja Ebron 1:16
I’ll start off, let me just say we’re, you know, I’m taking off your comment about legal tech, we’re not actually in legal Tech, we provide a legal technology or form of it for pro se litigants as opposed to law firms, which is what most legal tech does. And so we are firmly in the Justice Tech space as it’s known. Courtroom5. As you may know, Marlene is one of the founding members of the Justice Tech Association, along with several dozen other companies, serving consumers directly with technology solutions. And so it’s just really happy to be in that space. So what I do as CEO is, I’ve got my hands in some of everything I need the the technical team. I dabble in some of the marketing, do everything pretty much the Debra doesn’t do. She’s sort of a strong horse here.

Marlene Gebauer 2:10
Yeah, and I think I think since last night, we last spoke, so I knew like you guys have gotten some some awards and some quite a bit of recognition. If I were, if I remember correctly,

Sonja Ebron 2:18
It’s been a good, it’s been a good time. Absolutely. We’ve got a long way to go. Always, this is a tough nut to crack, we think in the industry, but are just really passionate and happy about the progress we’ve made.

Marlene Gebauer 2:30
So Debra, tell us about what you do.

Debra Slone 2:33
Yeah, Courtroom5 is a very content heavy company, we’re trying to educate as well as encouraged and instill some confidence and empowerment. And so my task, my job is to… I’m totally responsible for all the content on the site. So I’m, I’m to create it, I’m took a lead that, handed out, store it, preserve it, manage it, maintain it, all that stuff, all the knowledge base for Courtroom5,

Marlene Gebauer 3:06
and that must be quite a job, I would imagine it is a huge shock.

Sonja Ebron 3:12
A lot of people busy Debra, for those who don’t know, as a PhD librarian. And so that’s really a perfect role for her. You know, I just one of the things I tout to some of our investors and other folks who’d be able to got a PhD librarian, and how we think of the solution that we provide for consumers is really just in time delivery of the legal information they need. Right? So the tech really just distributes all the great work that Debra and her team do.

Marlene Gebauer 3:41
So tell us a little bit how the two of you met and I’ll I’ll let whoever wants to start start.

Debra Slone 3:50
We’ve met in Durham, North Carolina, over a spades game, which I won. It was it was a long game it was three hands spade three people and that’s how we met and after that we’ve you know, we’ve not we’ve seen each other every cent so

Speaker 1 4:10
Long a long time ago. barely remember that game because I rarely lose. I rarely lose a spades game and so I’m sure I’m blocked it from memory.

Marlene Gebauer 4:21
Had you met one another before? Or

Debra Slone 4:23
No. It was so the very first time

Marlene Gebauer 4:26
it was that third person was that the person who brought you together?

Sonja Ebron 4:30
No, actually it’s a long story but she was actually a girlfriend of mine and so.

Marlene Gebauer 4:39
Whoops.

Sonja Ebron 4:44
As we were, absolutely.

Marlene Gebauer 4:46
Well… sometimes those things happen and you know, it’s just seemed to work out for the best for everybody. So

Sonja Ebron 4:55
it’s been a lot. It’s been a couple decades and so it worked out very well.

Marlene Gebauer 4:59
Good. So what’s been the best thing about being in the same profession, and not even in the same profession, but I mean, the same company, for the two of you?

Debra Slone 5:14
For me, it’s been the ability to say something and have her understand it fully. You know, I couldn’t do that as a librarian, and she, and she did it. But as as, as two people working together, we have the same goals, we have the same out pretty much the same outlook, we know the same people, we can talk about things and we just know what’s going on, we just keep each other abreast of what’s going on. So I think that’s a wonderful thing, a wonderful part of our working together,

Sonja Ebron 5:51
I would just say, I do know, we’re both, we both got into this, because we’re, you know, found ourselves being screwed over in court. And to be able to, to see people succeeding with the solution we built for them. It’s just really satisfying. And it’s just incredible, to be able to share that with with Debra, you know, it’s been we’ve been working on this, it seems like since we were both in kindergarten, a good long time now, but just to, you know, just to see folks who really wouldn’t have an option to get any kind of justice in court without a lawyer, you know, have have a better day in court with our solution and share that with us. You know, it’s great for the entire team, but certainly, it’s something that is, you know, really makes our day when we get that kind of feedback.

Marlene Gebauer 6:40
So a shared passion, but I also imagine complementary skills. And that probably helps the two of you where, you know, one is strong, maybe the other is less than if the other strong, and vice versa. So do you find that happening?

Debra Slone 6:55
Yes,

Sonja Ebron 6:56
I think so. Absolutely. I mean, I didn’t understand. And I know Debra, for a long time, you know, I knew she was a librarian. And I didn’t, but I didn’t really understand what librarians do until I was working with one and this way, right?

Marlene Gebauer 7:09
You’re not Alone.

Sonja Ebron 7:10
That’s right. I mean, it’s, it’s really, it’s really amazing the skills that librarians have, and the way that they can apply it, and we’re in the knowledge, you know, era, and to see these professionals, just curate information and and figure out what people need and deliver it to them is miraculous. And so it’s been very educational continues to be educational for me on a daily basis, I think, you know, we get to sort of approach the problems that we have as a business, from very different perspectives. I’m technical, I’m an engineer, you know, I don’t think like a librarian, Debra doesn’t think like an engineer. And so for us to just sort of sync up on the business problems that we have from those very different perspectives is just, it’s really joyful.

Marlene Gebauer 7:58
So I’ll flip it then. So what’s been the most challenging thing about being in the same profession in the same company?

Debra Slone 8:05
Being at work all the time.

Marlene Gebauer 8:08
Work, work leads, work leads over I guess, yes, yeah, it does.

Debra Slone 8:15
Yeah, so we have to spend a lot of time or at our scheduling, we have to schedule our personal life, and we have to schedule our work life and we have to schedule, you know, just just mundane things that people wouldn’t normally schedule. We have to do that. Because we just otherwise we just be in work mode all the time. So that’s, that’s the most challenging thing for me.

Sonja Ebron 8:39
And for me, as well, it’s like, we’re, we’re in a constant business meeting you like, the lights never go out at the business? Right? We’re just always working. And so we’ve had to develop some skill, around siloing different conversations. There are conversations you have with a business partner and their conversations that you have with life partner, and, you know, you’re not careful, they can lead into each other, and you’re just always doing both all the time. And so we’ve gotten really skilled, I think, at naturally understand, okay, am I talking to my business partner? Or am I talking to my wife? Right, you know, and just just keeping the lines clear there.

Marlene Gebauer 9:22
What are some? Oh, sorry, go ahead.

Debra Slone 9:24
Oh, I’m sorry, we just code switch sometimes, we just slip right into work business and vice versa, personal business.

Marlene Gebauer 9:33
So I was I was gonna say if you could share some sort of tips in terms of how to silo those things, because, I mean, even I think even couples that aren’t in the same professions, like you know, you start talking about work and then you can’t stop talking about work and like, how do you be like, alright, you know, time to stop that and move to personal things.

Sonja Ebron 9:54
You know, I would say you have to be very intentional about it. So Debra mentioned having to schedule you know, things and we literally put everything that happens for us personally and professionally on a calendar. Right. And so in that way that light switch off and on. But also, we’re both very strong willed people, very assertive people. And so, you know, Debra will say, at 3am, I don’t want to have a business meeting right now.

Marlene Gebauer 10:26
Why not?

Sonja Ebron 10:27
Right, that’s exactly what I’m saying.

Marlene Gebauer 10:31
Come on, I’m thinking about this.

Sonja Ebron 10:33
About it. Right. And so, you know, she, she does this more than I do. But just drawing lines, right. Okay, no, we’re having dinner, let’s have dinner. Okay, you know, let’s just enjoy, you know, ourselves, and we could talk about business at the, you know, tomorrow, or schedule it, it’s on the calendar, we’ll do it, then. You know, so you have to be very intentional and willful about it. Because it is difficult it is, it is a very challenging thing. And you get burnt out on certainly running a startup, right. And it’s really easy for that to bleed into the personal relationship. And so, you know, and you just, I mean, it gets messy, that you don’t draw those lines.

Debra Slone 11:12
Absolutely.

Marlene Gebauer 11:13
So what kind of reaction do you get, like, when you tell others that you work and you work for the same company?

Sonja Ebron 11:22
Oh, I could never. I could never work with it. Right? I hear that a lot. But also, I hear people who, those who like their spouses, I guess I should say, we’re like, wow, that would be so cool to be able to spend the whole day, you know. Most days that that’s true. But you do have those tough days, too. So yeah, so I hear I hear a variety of responses personally.

Debra Slone 11:50
Yeah, most of what I hear, is it? Oh, that would be nice. You know, yeah, I don’t have to drive over a where they buy? Yeah. But, ya know, they’re, they’re thinking it’s all rosy.

Sonja Ebron 12:04
Yeah, there’s a lot of work. It’s an extra layer of work, in fact, and

Marlene Gebauer 12:09
That sort of leads into my next question, you know, how do you handle situations where, you know, you know, you don’t agree on on how to handle something, you know, that you’re, you know, both facing, you know, both personally and professionally?

Sonja Ebron 12:27
Yeah, we constantly business meeting, again, we, you know, we’re both pretty much equal owners of the business. And so, very rarely do I get to say, Well, I’m the CEO, I’m going to do it this wayl It doesn’t work that way, for a variety of reasons, including this is my life partner. I can’t do that. So often, you know, it’s difficult, we talk a lot, we reach consensus. And I think over the time of the business, we’ve come to understand that that consensus process, you know, it tends to, tends to help us reach better decisions. Over time, we think things through and we’re both over educated, both PhDs. And so we think about things 360 Anyway, for AI, again, adds an extra level of work to the consensus process, but we think things through and we do that in collaboration with each other, and we keep talking about it, unless there’s an emergency unless something has to be done today. Right? And that’s mostly on my you know, that’s mostly my call. But if it’s a big decision, sometimes really small wins, like what should the email campaign look like this week? But but you know, we talk it out, we talk it out. And so there’s a whole lot of words exchanged to get to some of these basic decisions.

Debra Slone 13:49
Yeah, we there was, there was one about two years ago, there was a on a change that we wanted to make. And Sonja really wanted to change. And I was like, Oh, hell no. And we talked, and we talked, and we talked for days, and we just talked about it. And we finally came to a consensus, but Oh, that was just it was we both had to make some compromises. We both had to give a little on our on each side. And, you know, it worked out. Okay. But that that was the longest time we’ve ever had a consensus session. I mean, it just went on for that. I think, like a week, week and a half or something.

Marlene Gebauer 14:30
Wow.

Debra Slone 14:31
Just know, we talked about?

Speaker 1 14:33
Yeah, you do. I mean, we’ve gotten good over the over the years at planning our roadmap. And so we do that as owners and then once we come to some very high level decisions, you know, we engage the team and we get a, you know, a more granular level of what’s going to happen when, and so we rarely have these sorts of issues, you know, on a day to day basis, right, but then there are opportunities that come up, there’s a new challenges that come up, you know, that throw those plans out the window and we have to have to have these very long sometimes week long conversations about how to deal with them.

Debra Slone 15:10
It helps when the when the team can sound in on some pot on it, sometimes.

Marlene Gebauer 15:15
They can they can be the tiebreakers?

Sonja Ebron 15:17
Yeah, absolutely. And there are always things that we just haven’t thought about. Right. And so yeah, it’s good to good to engage as many people as we can.

Marlene Gebauer 15:29
Well, it seems like anything else, like communication is key, right?

Sonja Ebron 15:33
Yep. You got it.

Marlene Gebauer 15:35
Alright, so tell me some of the interesting things that you guys are working on now?

Sonja Ebron 15:40
Ah, everything is interesting. We’re still a startup. We’re tech startup, right? I think, for me, personally, we are continuing to build out our AI roadmap, which we have to do very carefully. We hear a lot about AI and legal tech these days, obviously. But, there’s AI, again, that’s built for law firms, right. And then there’s AI for legal consumers, which is a different level of effort, you have to build in guardrails for people who aren’t skilled in this area at all. They don’t know how to fact check, or, you know, gut check, or any of the stuff on the legal information and analysis that they’re doing. So, really excited about the progress of that we’ve released a couple features already, which are doing really well serving our customers really well. But we’ve got, you know, about two thirds of the process still to go. And just really excited about that. And I’m, you know, again, leading the technical team, but the bulk of it, as anybody any AI knows is that is the data, is the training. And that’s where Debra is having a really good time, and I’m having a good time watching her.

Marlene Gebauer 16:47
And Debra, is in charge of the data strategy, right?

Debra Slone 16:50
Yep. Sometimes it’s, you know, trying to get him to say what we want it to say is, is a challenge, but we manage on a daily basis.

Marlene Gebauer 17:03
I mean, or can you share any of some of the new tools that are there? Or is that still top secret?

Sonja Ebron 17:08
I think I’ll just share most of its top secret. So we can’t really talk about it until it’s released. But we have released a couple chatbots. One for members of the public folks just wandering through. And so we get to watch the bot just converse with them about their specific issues. As you might know, pro se litigants don’t really know what’s relevant to their issues, or how to even think about some of their issues. Sometimes they may not even know they have a legal issue. And so we saw the bot just sort of crystallizes, the brain dump, they do, right

Debra Slone 17:43
We’ll throw in everything.

Sonja Ebron 17:45
Exactly. Yes, it’s sort of an organized list of where you got to consider this. And, and I know about that, and now and so just watching the AI that we’ve built, speak to the public in that way. It’s been really exciting. You know, and we continue to train with that information to continue to train and correct where necessary, but that’s been fun. We have a similar bot, though, that talks to Courtroom5 customers. Courtroom5 members about their specific issues and can’t say a whole lot about it. But that’s a different level of excitement. And just to see the guidance, I’ll put it carefully that the bots provide to our customers to help them find the right tools and information on our platform has just been really exciting.

Marlene Gebauer 18:33
I imagine that’s gonna be helpful. I mean, just in both situations, because, you know, we kind of hear about prompting and how challenging prompting can be about like, I’m thinking about pro se litigants where it’s like, again, they don’t know how to have a problem. They don’t know, the terminology. And this, this has got to be an incredible help for them.

Sonja Ebron 18:50
We think so we’ve heard that from, from our customers, for sure. And so, you know, things are, you know, things are better. With AI. I’ve been excited for it I’ve been working at well, not directly, but I was involved with AI very early on. I’ve been looking at it for 30 years and watching it grow, and just really excited to see the successes that it can have on a very difficult problem like the one we’re solving. So just excited for the future of it.

Marlene Gebauer 19:21
Very good. So, Sonja, you know about our crystal ball question because you’ve been on before, but we’re sort of doing this a little bit differently. So instead of a crystal ball well, we basically are asking everybody, you know, what advice would you give another couple who are considering working in the same field or working together in the same business like you are?

Debra Slone 19:44
My first would be, just commit to staying together. Just commit to your personal relationship first.

Sonja Ebron 19:53
You’ve got to have a basis in that relationship that’s, you know, solid foundations. If you’re going to build a business relationship on top of it, because it is, you know, it’s difficult. We’ve talked about some of the challenges and trying to silo conversations and keep things in their own lane. It’s, you know, building a startup in particular, is a very difficult enterprise. And, you know, if you don’t have a solid personal foundation to build that on, you know, it’s going to be more difficult. Both of those are going to be more difficult, but the personal and professional. On the flip side, though, if you do have a solid relationship, personal relationship, when you’re thinking about it, at least in our case, starting a business with your partner. Now, don’t do it, because it’s your partner and you want to spend a lot more time. That’s not the reason to do it. Right. That’s a great benefit, for sure, great benefit, but it’s not the reason. You want to choose a business partner who can add something significant to the business, right. That I think is really the secret to our success. Here. You know, we got Courtroom5 wouldn’t exist without I think either of us. But certainly Debra’s skill set is critical to what we’ve been able to deliver. And so you know, I get to think about who if I didn’t have Debra, who would be the co founder, I can’t think of anybody, honestly better suited to, to build this for Courtroom5. So you’ve got to have you know, you’ve got to satisfy yourself that you’ve got the right co founder, not just the right partner, if you’re going to do this work.

Marlene Gebauer 21:29
Well, it sounds like you both do have the right partners both in life and in business. So Sonja Ebron and Debra Slone. Thank you both for coming to The Geek in Review and sharing your love and Legal and Tech story,

Sonja Ebron 21:42
It’s been a pleasure to be here. Thanks so much, Marlene,

Debra Slone 21:45
Thank you for inviting us.

Marlene Gebauer 21:47
And of course, thanks to all of you, our listeners for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoy the show, share it with a colleague. We’d love to hear from you. So reach out to us on social media. I can be found on LinkedIn. And Greg can also be found at on LinkedIn and threads at @glambertpod. And as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David DeCicca. Thank you both. And thanks everyone. Have a great day.

In the latest episode of “The Geek in Review” podcast, hosts Greg Lambert and Marlene Gebauer continue their series of interviews at the 2024 LegalWeek conference with guest Bill Piwonka, the Chief Marketing Officer at Exterro. The conversation dives into Exterro’s participation at LegalWeek, highlighting the return to pre-COVID attendance levels and the company’s successful engagement with customers, prospects, and partners. Piwonka shares insights into Exterro’s focus on managing digital risk through the convergence of privacy, compliance, legal operations, litigation support, and cybersecurity response, emphasizing the importance of understanding and mitigating data risk. The discussion also covers Exterro’s recent announcement of an existing AI assistant, which differentiates itself by being immediately available for use, contrasting with other future-promised AI technologies.

Piwonka elaborates on the broader industry trends, including the pressures on Chief Legal Officers (CLOs) to reduce budgets while expanding responsibilities, as highlighted in a survey conducted with the ACC. He emphasizes the significance of operationalizing and optimizing legal processes to meet these challenges efficiently. The conversation also touches on the differences in ESG strategy between CLOs in the US and those internationally, suggesting cultural and political influences on these approaches.

Looking to the future, Piwonka anticipates continued expansion of the CLO’s role and responsibilities, especially in managing digital risk and ensuring responsible AI use. He predicts a shift in job roles and the creation of new employment opportunities as AI technologies evolve, rather than a reduction in employment. Piwonka concludes with suggestions on how to connect with Exterro for more information, highlighting the importance of platforms like LinkedIn and the company’s website. The podcast emphasizes the evolving landscape of legal technology and digital risk management, with AI playing a crucial role in shaping future practices and strategies within the legal profession.

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠

Contact Us: 

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads: @glambertpod or @gebauerm66
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠Transcript

Our inaugural guests, Alex Macdonald and Cassie Vertovec share their unique story of how a solid professional collaboration slowly turned into a deep, personal connection.  Alex, the Chief Strategy Officer at McCarter and English, LLP, and Cassie, the Practice Director of Corporate and Director of Practice Strategies at Barnes & Thornburg, began their journey in the legal tech world at Seyfarth Shaw.  Over the years they have found themselves leading teams together, moving across the country, isolating together during the pandemic, and most recently working in similar firms. They navigated their careers with mutual respect and understanding, highlighting the importance of communication and shared values in both their professional and personal lives.

They provide insights into the dynamics of working as a couple while maintaining a balance between work and persona life. Which is no easy feat as they are both intertwined with the legal profession. Their story is a testament to the idea that professional collaboration can lead to personal growth and deeper connections.

Our hopes with the “Love & Legal Tech” series are that we not only offer a glimpse into the lives of a couple navigating love and legal tech but also shed light on broader themes within the legal industry, including the shift towards greater tech integration and the challenges and opportunities it presents. Our sincere thanks to Cassie and Alex for sharing their story with us on this series premiere.

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠

Contact Us: 

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads: @glambertpod or @gebauerm66
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠Transcript

Marlene Gebauer 0:07
Welcome to The Geek in Review. The podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal profession. I’m Marlene Gebauer.

Greg Lambert 0:14
And I’m Greg Lambert. And we just flew back from legal week. Marlene, I had a hit, we actually ended up on the same flight back. And we had such a great conversation because I think I slept for two hours.

Marlene Gebauer 0:30
It’s like, we played games, we watch movies, and we slept. I think so. Yeah. That’s really what you should do on a on a fight, I think.

Greg Lambert 0:38
Absolutely, absolutely. So we are really excited because we’re going to start off our new love and legal tech feature. And today we have with us Cassie Vertovec, who is the practice Director of Corporate and direct practice director, corporate and director of practice strategies at Barnes & Thornburg, Cassie can we shorten that down a little bit?

Cassie Vertovec 1:06
Now they suckered me and Greg, they gave me two jobs when I was gonna start.

Greg Lambert 1:11
Two jobs, one salary, that’s a title two job. All right. It’s the American way that was done. And we have Cassie’s partner, Alex Macdonald, who is the Chief Strategy Officer at McCarter and English, LLP was so Alex welcome as well.

Alex Macdonald 1:30
Thank you. It’s a nice short title. And yeah, so I appreciate that.

Cassie Vertovec 1:36
Fitting to our personalities, by the way, he’s a lot more short and sweet. And I tend to run on,

Greg Lambert 1:42
I can tell this is gonna be great already. So before we begin, I did want to start because we’re calling this a love and legal tech, but just like this podcast, we’re, we’re not just about the technology, we’re about the innovation, we’re about creativity. So we’re using kind of a broad definition. But we’re leaving it in. Casssie, we’re going with the short title, just loving LegalTech. And so we’re happy to do that. So. So, and you guys are first couple to have on. So thank you very much for

Cassie Vertovec 2:20
Inaugural couple.

Greg Lambert 2:22
Yeah, yeah, this is this is going I can tell this is gonna be fun. All

Cassie Vertovec 2:27
right around the block. So maybe, maybe it’s good that it’s us. Yeah,

Greg Lambert 2:31
yeah. So well, Cassie wants to start with you. Can you just kind of talk to us a little bit about what you do in the legal field?

Cassie Vertovec 2:41
Sure. So I would broadly refer to my role as practice management. But it’s really a lot more than that. I’ve been working in large law firms for really about the last 20 years doing everything on the business operations, management and strategy side of things. And so, as of early December, I’m at Barnes and Thornburg. And I’ve got both a practice management role within the corporate department and a firm wide strategy role.

Greg Lambert 3:05
And Alex, give us a little background on you.

Alex Macdonald 3:08
Yeah, what she said. But if you want a little bit more, so I started my career off as a legal industry consultant. And I was predominantly back in those days focused on implementation of legal technology, as it created efficiencies within various legal teams. And that led to more operational consulting, as I progressed in my consulting career, and then from there, that’s where I went in house for me, which is where I met Cassie at Seyfarth Shaw. And I’m sure we’ll get into that. A little bit of practice management role. And since then, progress through the practice management side of the house, within big law, but about five years ago, took a position at McCarter and English, which pushed me more into the firm leadership and management space. So while I continue to have the practice management, legal techie stuff, you know, within my remit, I have, you know, all the boring stuff too, like loss prevention, and, you know, whether or not they’re the right doors around the conference firms and things like that, as well. So it’s been a it’s been a little bit of a shift the last couple years in particular, but all for the better.

Marlene Gebauer 4:16
So Alex, you you mentioned briefly how the two of you met, but I’m wondering if you guys can sort of give a little more detail about kind of how that relationship, you know, grew and blossomed.

Alex Macdonald 4:26
That’s good. Let’s say she hired me, but that’s not exactly the case.

Cassie Vertovec 4:30
I was gonna say I could do the short and sweet there. I’m good with that.

Alex Macdonald 4:40
No, she did not hire. He was part of the team that hired me, like I mentioned, I was I was consulting and at that point in time, I was traveling upwards of 200,000 miles a year flying and it just, it got to be too much for me and I really wanted to look for a little bit more of a stable lifestyle. So I started to look at law firms and sidebars had, obviously a great reputation for innovation and process. And for somebody like me, that was a great spot and applied for a role there. Cassie was one of the impressive people on the on the team that hired me. And, you know, I think our friendship blossomed from there and obviously, you know, house a couple houses and child later. Here we are.

Cassie Vertovec 5:30
A little bit more color. Has it I think this might be a little bit interesting. So we worked together at Seyfarth Shaw for a while, but we clicked right away. It’s partly why I recommended that we hire him. It’s partly why he wanted to come and join us. And we did we blossomed a really strong friendship and just partnership, we were like minded in a lot of things. We were doing presentations together, like right off them went off the bed as well. And it took both of us kind of confiding in each other, about a headhunter that reached out about a job opportunity in a completely different place, namely Washington, DC, for us to really start talking about making a move together, not together together, but together. And it took all of that to happen for us to realize that we had feelings for each other and that there was something there. And when we finally went back and told our staff, Redshaw colleagues, they all effectively rolled their eyes at us. And we’re like, yeah, duh,

Marlene Gebauer 6:28
no kidding. What took you so long?

Cassie Vertovec 6:32
It took us way longer than I took everyone else.

Alex Macdonald 6:35
This might be TMI, I mean, we told each other, we love each other before we had ever kissed just friendship blossom so deeply, to the point where when we were at that point, were like, should we be doing this? Is this what we’re doing? That I was like, no, no, we were like, I think we love each other. And, you know, so it was really backwards in many ways. And then, you know, from there, we probably spent, you know, we were talking about this earlier today at lunch that, you know, it was probably a little, maybe an exaggeration, but not quite well, you could count on two hands, the number of days we were apart over the next five or six years, that we work 24 hours a day together in the office, at home, in the office at home. And you really get the appreciate how strong a connection you have when when that’s sort of the repetitive pattern you have day in and day out. And, you know, Cassie likes to mention how, when the pandemic came around, and we had just split at that point, I had just gone to sidebar, she had just gone to her previous firm, or I just started just going to McCarter and she had just gone to her previous firm. And then the pandemic throw us back together again. And for us, it was like riding a bike. And we were right back into it. And I know a lot of couples struggle with that. But for us, it was it was old hat.

Greg Lambert 7:52
I was not expecting to start crying on this.

Marlene Gebauer 7:56
I mean, it must have been, you know, scary because you know who you are, you know, you’re really tight work colleagues. And, you know, you’re developing feelings, and it’s, you know, it’s like, are we gonna, are we gonna ruin this?

Alex Macdonald 8:12
There was some of that.

Cassie Vertovec 8:13
I don’t even think it was that? I don’t know, like I don’t, there wasn’t really a choice in it. We were just we were kind of both there. And that was it. It wasn’t like we could choose not to do it or turn it off. For me. At least it was this is the reality, and it feels like it’s been there forever. Even though it’s all brand new. It’s kind of backwards.

Alex Macdonald 8:36
Yeah, I was gonna say there’s some of that it wasn’t that it was necessarily scary. It was more of oh, man, we just made this move to this firm together. We weren’t together when we made the move. Now we’re together. How is this going to be viewed by the employer? Because we were brought there to build an entire department together. And so we were working hand in hand they banked on us jointly. And we we felt like we were keeping something from them for a while. And then ultimately, it got to a point where it was untenable. We had to go to our our boss and say, hey, you know, look, this is what’s going on. Now. He was surprised. But he also also was very happy and excited because he said he couldn’t imagine two better people being together. So that stress was there for maybe the first 9-10 months or so but then you know, we pulled on it

Cassie Vertovec 9:31
I want to correct something though. Everything in a relationship is a we. But let’s just backtrack to how the conversation with that boss went down. And who had to deliver that message during her review? Oh, yeah. One of the two of us took one for the team.

Alex Macdonald 9:53
I am the Chief Strategy Officer. So my strategy

Cassie Vertovec 9:57
At the time you were not And I found that for you, too, by the way,

Alex Macdonald 10:05
We could we could go on for hours and hours about how we’ll intertwine barriers and you know how we support each other. It’s, it is sort of the bedrock, I think of what certainly, I would credit. A large chunk of my success too is that I can, frankly, steal ideas from her brilliant mind and take them and incorporate them in what I do. And maybe she gets an idea once a quarter or so for me, hopefully. But you know, that ability to talk with somebody on a on a on that professional level, but also have the deep respect and love you out for them is something really, I think, pretty special. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Greg Lambert 10:47
And, I would think a lot of people would think that, especially the way you two were working together for such a long period of time, that you know, it’d be one of those things. Where Don’t you get tired after a while of, you know, seeing the same person talking about the same things is and so what do you think was the best thing about, you know, being in the same profession and working together?

Cassie Vertovec 11:18
Hey, I think that that’s, that’s kind of two part for us. I think you saw both of us shake our heads and for people just listening. We don’t ever get sick of each other. Do we get sick of the subject matter? Absolutely. And have we have we debated a disputed over how much we talk about work? Absolutely. I mean, when you spend 24 hours a day together there, there’s only so much really to talk about. But I do think that, for us, in particular, because our lives are so intertwined. They’re just so intertwined. We talk about everything all the time. And we have made a conscious effort, not to talk as much about work. And it does help that we have a daughter, she’s six. And Alex has a son, who is 19. And so we have kids in the life, we like to travel a lot, we have other interests. So we have made a point to talk about other things. But we it’s still a challenge. I mean, it’s been a decade. And here we are still talking about work doing work things all the time.

Alex Macdonald 12:28
Yeah, I mean, it’s Cassie has a term earlier today that I don’t think she coined, but certainly we use quite a bit. It’s called Work Life integration. And if there’s any couple that has worked in life, sort of fully integrated, I think it’s probably us, I mean, we’ll have a we’ll be having a conversation about maybe an ill family member, or they are something our child has to get better at, at school, or, you know, my son’s girlfriend, and then all intertwined with that will be, you know, oh, but this person at work was doing this, or my executive committee is expecting XYZ out of me in the next, you know, in the next 30 days, and it really sort of all seamlessly flows is one organic conversation, which I can imagine people from the outside looking at it would go that, that spins my head, how you guys are hopping topics together, but it’s because of that, you know, that amount of time we spend together that I think, you know, we almost have a shorthand way of speaking, which is, you know, also I find to be, you know, endearing, but also, I can imagine to other people, they might find it a little ball.

Marlene Gebauer 13:41
I’m kind of curious, I mean, sort of what’s been the most challenging thing about being in the same profession, like beyond to people, you know, to professionals working full time having kids. You know, is there something specific about sort of being in the same profession that that is a particular challenge?

Alex Macdonald 14:04
Oh, I, can I can at the risk of maybe, you know, saying something that was going to make you mad. I think I think there can be a tendency at points to benchmark yourself, especially as to type a people you will know, that your firms offer especially now that we’re different firms, you know, well, your opportunity is x or people you get to work with our why and my opportunities and, and that, personally for me is difficult because I don’t you know, I try not to do that in any walk of life but trying to try to just be accountable to myself and worry about myself. There’s a natural tendency I think it points to try and when you’re type A and you’re ambitious, and you want to succeed in your career, you and you have somebody next to you who’s doing the same thing you sometimes try to measure yourself against that person and I’m You know, in a relationship, that’s, that’s a difficult thing.

Cassie Vertovec 15:05
And let’s be real. I mean, we work in large law firms, which means that we are kind of stuck in the prehistoric age in many different many ways. What and there have definitely been times over the last decade when Alex and I have been working together. And not, when there’s been a circumstance when, let’s just say, if we were working from the exact same presentation, the exact same script, it would be reflected differently if it was delivered by him or delivered by me. And that’s, that’s a challenging thing to get past. And, you know, I’m the one that struggled to get past it more, and he’s the one that would hear the benchmarking. And so those were definitely moments for us where we had to think about what am I really trying to say, and what’s really what am I really trying to solve for? And then what is he really hearing. So we could ultimately also improve our communication, which is another thing that we worked on at work together because we were hired to run a team. So communication was really important for us professionally. And then we were figuring out communication personally, as well. And that’s where someone that I think intersected a little bit and became just maybe a little bit challenging for us. But I think because we’re so close, and we’ve got such a good deep foundation. It’s not like any of these things were ever issues for us. They were just little things that we had to figure out and move on from.

Greg Lambert 16:32
Yeah, that kind of reminds me we had a conversation years ago with Ryan McClead, who is going to be on with Kate Boyd, in one of the later shows that it we had this argument years ago. And I think Marlene remembers us where we’d went to a conference, and somebody was saying, Well, I can’t tell you how you know what we’re doing, because you might steal that. And Ryan and I were both like, you could lay out everything you’re doing in order. And there is no way that I can go to my firm in my environment in my culture, and do that. So it doesn’t matter what you tell me, it’s going to be so much different, you know, when we do it there. So I imagine that there’s, you know, there’s this issue of, you know, well, I had to be careful so that I don’t you know, let this out, let this out. Like most most law firms are so, so different from each other, that it doesn’t matter. Are you finding that to? Can be the case?

Alex Macdonald 17:38
Yeah, well, I have a sign up on my wall in my office, it says culture eats strategy for breakfast. I know, it’s a well known term. But I I believe that wholeheartedly, and it’s sort of a reminder to me, Greg, exactly, that, you know, IT strategy you employ, has to mesh and that the firm’s and we all know that firms are all totally different. You know, I’d say but more recently, as Cassius moved, you know, into a firm, where it’s, you know, similar segment of the, of the market in terms of the clients and the type of work that we do, we definitely, you know, shifted gears a little bit and try it, you know, definitely paying much more attention to that sensitivity, maybe that’ll dissipate over time, because I tend to agree with you that, you know, she could give me the secret sauce to coke. And it’s not going to be our secret sauce to coke.

Cassie Vertovec 18:29
I guess also one thing to talk about, like, things that you’re doing, from a strategic standpoint, like things that you’re talking about in terms of lpm, or pricing or technology tools are pilots that you’re doing, like, that’s one thing. Whereas to talk to me about like, a partner of mine that you want to that you want to poach. Like, those are two different things. So right, and then we’re both smart enough and professional enough that we also know how to walk that line. But we do have to walk it really for the first time because when we both loved Venable, he went to McCarter and I went to Paul Hastings, the two firms are really not on each other’s radar. So it was just a completely different conversation. Whereas today, both firms are clearly on each other’s radar. So, but again, we’re smart enough and professional enough that we know how to keep that out of the conversation. When frankly, we would probably tease each other if it ever came to pass like the competition.

Alex Macdonald 19:27
I was gonna say it also helps fuel the the, the, you know, fuel having other conversations, which I’m all for this now.

Greg Lambert 19:37
What what do people say when when you tell them that you’re a couple and you both work in the same industry?

Marlene Gebauer 19:43
Yeah, because when when we set this out, like we were thinking, Oh, I mean, we know a couple people but we were very surprised at the amount of people that that you know, they are couples in this this this industry and, you know, we’re willing to talk So yeah, what what, you know, what are you finding?

Cassie Vertovec 20:04
I think that when we, when we tell new people, especially now that we’ve lived through a pandemic, the first thing that people say is, oh, I could never do that. I could never work with my spouse, I killed them, we wouldn’t survive. And I think a lot of marriages and relationships didn’t survive the pandemic, for that reason, and everybody was under one roof at the same time, it didn’t really know how to do that. And for us, it’s just, it’s how we started. And so it’s very natural. And people have to see us together, they just kind of get it. I don’t know, Alex, what else you would add?

Alex Macdonald 20:41
Yeah, I think people find that out, you know, in our personal life, and, and, you know, they’re not totally surprised that we would be aligned with interest, because we appear aligned on a lot of things that way. But I’m gonna shift gears a little bit and tell a little bit of a funny story. When I started at McCarter within a month, I had to give a presentation on our partner retreat. And I went through this whole dog and pony show where I was presenting data, and I was saying, you know, these are the things we want to focus on. And, you know, yadda, yadda, yadda, but my real motivation is, and I kept flashing up, you know, pictures of Cassie and saying, how, you know, beat Cassie was effectively my motivation, because it’s the first time we’d split, you know, go back to that type of a competition type of thing. But I was doing a tongue in cheek, of course, but I still have partners, you come up to me five years later and ask how Cassie is doing and asking, you know, whether or not I’m winning in the competition?

Marlene Gebauer 21:44
So attorney

Cassie Vertovec 21:45
That’s when he was nicknamed the Night King, early on.

Alex Macdonald 21:51
I did. But that’s a whole other story. But sometimes I, I have to stop and remember what I said all those years ago, because that was just a gimmick that I use to sort of introduce myself to the firm. It’s not, it’s, it’s not who we are. And so I think when people find it out, you know, they probably hear what they, you know, what they want to hear about it. You know, I think most people want to know what we talk about all the time. And, you know, the answer is, you know, we talk about what everybody talks about, we just happen when we talk about work to have a little bit of a deeper appreciation for, for what each other is going through.

Marlene Gebauer 22:32
So, I mean, I know you’ve, you’ve mentioned that, you know, both of you have worked together in the past, and though you may not be working together now. You know, how did you handle situations where, you know, you didn’t agree on on, you know, the approach. And, you know, I’m also wondering how that, how that, how that carries over until now.

Greg Lambert 22:56
How’s that carry over after five o’clock?

Cassie Vertovec 22:59
We open a bottle of wine.

Greg Lambert 23:02
Perfect.

Marlene Gebauer 23:02
Wine solves many problems.

Alex Macdonald 23:04
Luckily, for us, when we work together, there were few, you know, the, the space between us was, was pretty narrow. But the times boy, cool. The times when we did disagree on something. Those were probably some of the, the, the, yeah, I’ll just call spade a spade, the ugly stuff, it’s in our relationship. And luckily for us, they haven’t been that many. And, you know, luckily for us, we don’t really have those anymore, because we don’t work together. But it is difficult. There’s no doubt about it. And for me, in particular, I, I when I don’t get mad easily. And when I do get mad, it is it is a weeks long event. So I apologize for those for those occurrences. But, yeah, so luckily for us, it just doesn’t happen that often. But when it does, I’m sorry.

Cassie Vertovec 23:59
And I would say I would agree that early on it just it made it so easy. And it’s why we knew it’s kind of why we wanted to take the jobs at Venable is we knew that we worked together. And I think it’s what made us attractive to them was they were looking to build something. And it’s really hard to pick off individual people at a senior level who don’t know each other and say, Okay, now get into the kitchen and try to build this together, especially if they’re not starting at the exact same time. You end up just backpedaling then and not really getting anything done. And we had this track record, we knew that we liked each other. We knew that we worked really well together, we communicated very well. And we just came from generally the same perspective. And so I think our foundation was built on on that, which made it a little bit easier as we got down the line. As Alex said, when we were you know, we were very emotionally invested in each other and what we were doing we both relocated from Chicago to Washington DC to make that work and the that for Room was completely and totally different from the firm we came from. I mean, you talk about apples and oranges, and it’s apples and oranges. Even though on paper, they looked kind of similar some of the key metrics at the time, but couldn’t have been more different. And the culture point that Alex made was a key one. And I’m a hot temper, I cooled off easy, but I’m a hot temper. And I don’t necessarily show it in my day job. But when your day job bleeds into your life, we would get going on something and it would just run. And we would take it and I, you know, we’d run hot and back and forth and debating whatever it was, we were debating, I can’t even remember like a single topic that we debated about, because then I think it probably came to everything under the sun, and sometimes required a you know, a walk outside and the cool air to figure that out. But ultimately, we always, we always came back and cooled down and, and figured it out. And I don’t think that there was really anything negative that came from it, especially in terms of our work product. Like we came back together, we figured out a way forward, it was sometimes a compromise, I prefer to go with the Win Win approach than the compromise being a lose, lose. But in like every relationship, there’s always some bit of that. And I think that our stuff and only saw that, especially as it came to work, because we were, we were so careful and so thoughtful, to make sure that our team never ever felt that there was anything going on because we had a personal relationship that was not meant for the workplace. And so we just I think we went over and above to make sure that things during the work day stayed where they were. And that also might be why we had some of those after hours, tiffs, you know, because we really, we really focused so hard during the day to make sure that everybody was comfortable with our working environment.

Alex Macdonald 26:50
Yeah, and the other, the other part of that, I’m glad you reminded me that, you know, you’d be sitting there in a room where, you know, you might disagree with something. And that was probably one of the hardest things about working together was, you did have to share that united front because you were jointly running a team. And, you know, typically you we would all do that if we were jointly running a team, we would support our colleague and show united front to the team, then you go home, where you’d normally get to vent about all that other person. It’s such it’s such a thing. Well, when we went home, it was together. And so the only first of the vent to about that other person doing the such and such a thing was that other person. So I think over time, you know, we learned, we I think we do what we do, we turned it into a positive and we learned how to use it to communicate better and understand each other’s perspective on things. Luckily, we don’t work together anymore. So we definitely don’t have those situations that those exact situations that come up, but you know, it, it definitely strengthened us as a couple out to go through those things. You know, over the years.

Cassie Vertovec 27:57
And I think we really enjoyed working together. That mean, I say that really and truly like, I I really loved that time of life when we were working together and figuring stuff out, you know, on a professional level. But we obviously know the personal level. And I’m good with that, too.

Alex Macdonald 28:14
Yeah, yeah.

Greg Lambert 28:15
Because I was gonna ask you how you balance that, but it sounds like you want over time you kind of learned that. And I imagine when you were working together, it was probably a little bit more structured on, okay, we’re transitioning into our personal life, let’s leave work behind us a little bit or

Alex Macdonald 28:34
Literally, structured sometimes. I mean, it would be like, you know, kiss in the car, and then don’t come within six feet of each other the rest of the day.

Cassie Vertovec 28:44
While there was that, but we also we didn’t we didn’t have kids at that point. Like together.

Greg Lambert 28:50
Yeah.

Cassie Vertovec 28:50
And so there really was no separation, we’d leave work and work clothes would go to a restaurant, have conversations continuing whatever it was that we were talking about previously. Like we made a life doing other things. We got great friends, and we’re living in Washington, DC, we played sports, we traveled a lot. But I would say a majority of our life was just revolved around work. And then having when we had our daughter, that’s when things I think really started to become more clear, because you know, when you have kids, you become the topic of conversation like 90% of the time. So work took a major backseat to talking about our daughter. And you know, over the years, I think I was joking with Alex earlier when I said this because I said I think this is the term that the kids are using the work life integration. But I do think it really does describe it epitomize a little bit, what our lives have become as the way that we just we integrate pretty seamlessly, our personal stuff that we really enjoy on the side, and then everything related to our jobs as well.

Greg Lambert 29:59
Yeah, And then Marlene, you’re muted.

Marlene Gebauer 30:05
Sorry about that the dog was barking. So, shifting to sort of professional now like what, you know, what are some of the interesting things that the two of you are doing now in in the legal tech world.

Greg Lambert 30:22
It’s AI, right?

Marlene Gebauer 30:26
Got to be AI

Alex Macdonald 30:28
researcher by the AI. But, you know, I think that’s probably a good example of where Cassie and I might have different views on and we have some spirited debates over the impact of AI in our field. But you know, I mean, I’m fortunate enough I, my job is, you’re broad in scope, I wear a ton of different hats in the firm. So, you know, one of the things isn’t legal tech related. But, you know, I get to spend a lot of time growing the firm, and going around and meeting lawyers from a bunch of different walks of life, whether they be lawyers who are at boutique firms who are looking to wind those firms down and use a acquisition by us as a, as a retirement strategy or continuity strategy all the way to, you know, partner at XYZ, big firm who’s, you know, thinking about a transition and looks at our platform that might make sense, for any number of reasons. And I found that part of the job recently to be a really fulfilling part of, of what I do. But you know, in the legal tech specific space, I mean, we’ve found that some of the automation is much more ready and ripe for our operations, rather than necessarily client client facing your client service. And so we’re spending a decent amount of time and resources focused there. You can, you’ve probably heard it, and you’re thinking about automating AP, you know, for example, I mean, that’s, that’s sort of an easy one, or, you know, automating things around our help desk, for tech support and things of that nature. That, to me seems to be a much more ubiqui tous technology that’s available and more mature. And one that impacts the bottom line of the firm just as much as trying to figure out crack the nut of, you know, the service delivery. But, you know, it’s, it’s an interesting time to do what we do, I think the industry is at an inflection point, anybody who ever hears me talk about the industry will hear me say, you know, how they’re, you know, there are these different sort of crisis points in, in the larger world that tend to create big shifts in our industry, whether it goes back to the, you know, 911, or to the economic collapse in 2008 2009. And now to COVID. I think all of those events drive tremendous change through our industry. And so right at the sort of the beginning point of this next wave, and, you know, certainly legal tech is going to be one of those, one of those leading catalysts of that wave.

Greg Lambert 33:20
Cassie, what are you doing?

Cassie Vertovec 33:22
Well, I’m 60 days into a new job. So I’m doing a lot of everything and a lot of nothing. So asked me again, the next time we talk, but really, I’m getting up to speed on what’s a great firm, a firm that is very tech forward, in my opinion, they’ve already opened their doors to a lot of really great vendors. And we, one of the things that we really need to focus on is more tech adoption. It’s not necessarily bringing in the tech, but it’s more making sure that we’re leveraging it and using it, and driving those efficiencies and the gains and profitability within the business. We have a an AI committee that I’m going to be part of which I’m really excited about, because I’m on the side of the debate here that thinks that generative AI is something that we do need to be thinking about and considering will have to implement.

Alex Macdonald 34:21
I think we’ll need to be thinking about it. I just don’t think it’s as disruptive as people think it’s gonna be but yeah,

Cassie Vertovec 34:27
Yeah, we can get into that today. But I’m glad to be involved in in those conversations and thinking about where we can and should be going and how we can help the business and the practice of law to be even more efficient. I agree with Alex, I think. I think it’s an exciting time to be in legal today. I feel that in our positions being on the professional side of the firm, we actually make a difference in the client relationship today. We can actually be the make or break decision for us. Lion and whether or not they want to do work with our firms that the cost of you know, am law 100 Law Firm, pretty good lawyers, right? Typically, you’re gonna go to any one of the law and 100 firms and you can find a good lawyer, so becomes more than about just finding the good lawyer becomes about the experience with the firm. And that’s everything that we touch. And so I think it’s an exciting time because we get to, we get to play a role in that client relationship and helping the firm to drive a competitive advantage and to be sticky. And I’m, I’m excited about that. And again, as asked me in six months or so what I’m doing, and I’m sure I’ll have a much more succinct list of interesting things, but for right now, I think it’s a lot of everything and nothing

Greg Lambert 35:42
Makes sense. Makes sense. But normally, we ask our, our guests what we call our crystal ball question. And, Cassie, I’m so glad that you are part of our first couple because you are a Valentine’s Day baby. And so maybe we coined this Marlene as the Valentine’s question. Right? And so what advice would you give another couple who’s considering working in the same field or working together in the in the same business that you think would help them succeed? Alex, won’t we go with you? And Cassie, we’ll we’ll finish up with the with our own St. Valentine did to answer that?

Alex Macdonald 36:28
Yeah, I don’t know, if there’s a one size fits all answer, Greg, I think, you know, it really is about compatibility. You know, there are some couples that work out just fine and are great couples, but it’s because they have the space and distance and the independence to live, you know, different lives and work in and sometimes even personally, you know, so in order for people working together, whether it’s in the legal industry, or starting a business together, or whatever the case may be spending that much time together, is you really takes just a special set of communication skill set that, you know, you got to be open to it, and you got to have the right person, but I don’t know that there’s a one size fits all. answer to that. I’m sorry, that’s not a great answer, but it’s my answer.

Greg Lambert 37:28
Well, let’s see if Cassie has a one size fits all answer.

Cassie Vertovec 37:33
You know, I don’t think that Alex and I step back often and realize just how rare our relationship is, yeah, that we did start by working together and then built a friendship and then started working even more closely together by building a team together and then built a family together and spent 24 hours a day together, while we were working for the same company, and then 24 hours a day together working for different companies with a two year old at home during a pandemic. And so I think he’s right, unfortunately, Greg, for you, that there really is not a one size fits all answer. But he he used compatibility, which I think was a great choice of c word I was gonna go with the other C word he mentioned, which is communication, that I think people who are going to be getting into a relationship. And I mean, at all, that’s obviously it’s obvious, but you communication is key, as corny as it is it’s true. But if you’re going to get into the same in a relationship with somebody that you work with, whether it’s just in the same industry, or the same company, or even in the same team, I think that you have to bring things forward, you have to talk about how you’re feeling. And if there are things that bother you, like, we had a lot of conversations about the benchmarking, because that was something that Alex really, really felt. And it was something that I never intended to do. But I was trying to think talk about things that were important are bothering me. And you have to figure out how to bring all of that out and share it with each other. So that it can be out in the open, you can figure it out and you can move on together and become stronger. I think for us, you know, realizing almost a decade and like our relationship is stronger than ever. And that’s after working together twice, having a child working separately through a pandemic and dealing with everything else that life has thrown our way which has been a lot. And so I would say also to be patient and have faith in each other, respect each other, just kind of the grace to see your relationship through but that would be for anybody anywhere, not just those working in the same job or industry.

Alex Macdonald 39:42
See, I’d like to take her answer.

Cassie Vertovec 39:46
You didn’t want the short and sweet this time?

Alex Macdonald 39:48
No, this is better.

Greg Lambert 39:52
Well, Cassie Vertovec and Alex MacDonald, I want to thank you both for coming on the show and sharing your love and legal tech stories.. Thank you both.

Marlene Gebauer 40:01
Thank you both. That was great you. And of course, thanks to all of you for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoy the show, share it with a colleague. We’d love to hear from you. So reach out to us on social media. I can be found on LinkedIn or on X at @gebauerm, and on Threads at @mgebauer66.

Greg Lambert 40:21
And I can be reached on LinkedIn or on X @glambert Or on threads at @glambertpod. Cassie, let’s start with you. If somebody wanted to learn more, reach out where’s the where’s a good place to find you online?

Cassie Vertovec 40:37
Well, not on @glambert that’s for sure. But find me on LinkedIn.

Greg Lambert 40:43
And Alex,

Alex Macdonald 40:45
at LinkedIn similarly or some other way or find me on the mccarter.com website and send me a note.

Cassie Vertovec 40:52
NO X no Tiktok no worrying any of that. Sorry. You guys

Greg Lambert 40:58
don’t have a have a couple of Tik Tok legal tech, couples

Marlene Gebauer 41:02
dance dance videos or anything like that.

Cassie Vertovec 41:05
Ask us next time.

Greg Lambert 41:08
In that six month reunion tour, we’ll get back to you.

Marlene Gebauer 41:13
Check back. And as always, everyone the music you hear is from Jerry David DeCicca Thank you, Jerry.

Greg Lambert 41:18
Yeah, thanks, Jerry. All right, everyone. Thank you very much.

Marlene Gebauer 41:21
Thank you

Mark Noel emphasized the strategic addition of data scientists to their team, enabling Redgrave Data to develop and advise on cutting-edge technologies. He stressed the importance of applying generative AI judiciously, pointing out its limitations and the potential for misuse if not properly vetted. Noel and Nichols shared insights on navigating the legal tech landscape, emphasizing efficiency, data management, and the careful evaluation of tech solutions.

Looking forward, Noel predicted a recalibration of expectations for generative AI in the legal industry, suggesting a period of disillusionment might follow the initial hype. Conversely, Nichols expressed optimism about the industry’s ability to thoughtfully incorporate new technologies, enhancing legal practices through careful testing and integration. Their discussion underscored the evolving nature of legal tech and the critical role of strategic implementation in leveraging its benefits.

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠

Contact Us: 

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads: @glambertpod or @gebauerm66
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠Transcript

Marlene Gebauer 0:07
Welcome to The Geek in Review. The podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal profession. I’m Marlene Gebauer,

Greg Lambert 0:14
And I’m Greg Lambert. Well this is take two because we had we had a party breakout as we were recording the

Marlene Gebauer 0:21
first because it was a flash mob

Greg Lambert 0:26
and we’re still here at legal week 2024 And when it started we are we are getting get it started in here is. But yeah, I won’t say that. But we have a returning guests. Mollie Nichols from Redgrave and she brought about a guest brought a guest with us today. Martin old, also from Redgrave. So Mollie and Mark, thank you very much for waiting and and Mark put on Mark, I just found out that you’re a former cop. Yeah. It showed when you went out there and started going out to the DJ. Well,

Mark Noel 1:03
it wasn’t the DJs fault. But we did have a chat with the ALM staff about putting, you know, a DJ right next to the press room.

Mollie Nichols 1:12
Yeah. made it a little difficult to start this.

Marlene Gebauer 1:17
You know, it’s all good. We’ll look back at this and laugh. It’ll be a good story.

Greg Lambert 1:24
So, Mollie, we had you on, about a year ago, and we’ll talk a little over a year ago. We’ll talk about that. But we’re here in New York and legal week. What brings you and Redgrave the legal week, what what what are you expecting to see? And what do people expect from you? While you’re here?

Mollie Nichols 1:44
Well, we just finished our second year. So we’ve

Marlene Gebauer 1:47
congratulations.

Mollie Nichols 1:48
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, we launched in January of 2022. And so we finished our second year in existence. And so we are continuing to get our message out about who we are and what we do. And it’s important that we’re a part of the conversation, and that we understand what technology is being talked about. So that we can actually perhaps bring a little different message. A lot of what you see at legal week is you see the shiny objects. And you hear a lot of hype. And we have a bunch of scientists on our staff and technologists who really focus on custom solutions about what our clients actually need, and what will work within their particular environment in their systems and their process. And right now, the big buzz is on generative AI and how can they implement generative AI into their workflow into their day to day into their legal matters? And if they even want to if they need or if they need to, right, and so we’re having those honest discussions with clients or potential clients, because a lot of things are coming up that are, are hype. And so it’s like getting through that message that there’s a lot to really look at, consider questions to ask. And education opportunity is an education opportunity. And so what we’ve done here at legal week, we actually have a room here in the Hilton on concourse g, where we’re having education sessions, and earlier today, and tomorrow, we’re going to have one on Gen AI use and tar workflows. And so it’s understanding how you can implement them, what are the pitfalls? And how much does that actually cost? And is there a cost savings? And I think we’re hearing that there’s probably not at least at this point in time, a

Mark Noel 4:07
lot of folks haven’t done the math on some of these things. And

Mollie Nichols 4:11
the timing. It’s a it’s a process and it takes a good amount of time. So anyway, so we are going through that education piece, and that’s why we’re here now.

Greg Lambert 4:23
Yeah, well, let me just kind of back off and mark or give us kind of a 30,000 foot level of why clients hire Redgrave.

Mark Noel 4:36
So, for background, we added two more scientists to our applied science. Okay, so we had Dave Lewis, who was formerly the head scientist at brainspace. And we added Jeremy Pickens who was formerly an open text in Catalyst. And then lindora Gray, who was one of the AI award innovator winners at relativity. has dinner last night. So we’ve got a lot of what we’ve been doing is, is gearing up to be able to both build and advise on these sorts of new technologies. That’s also included doing some research, you know, including for a vendor that I think I mentioned earlier, who hired us to help do the experimental design for their Gen AI, ai, review and classification offering. So we’ve had a lot of stuff going on like that, you know, in the past year, in addition to clients who come to us because we will tackle problems or solve problems that nobody else does, including a we write code in anger in the middle of a case.

Mollie Nichols 5:45
Mark, I haven’t heard, we normally talk about it, as you know, in the heat of battle, or on the fly, you know, building software,

Greg Lambert 5:54
I was thinking is anger, a new programming language? Like rust.

Mollie Nichols 6:03
I like that.

Mark Noel 6:06
Oh, but seriously, you know, one of the things that our some of our early large clients learned is they could throw random problems at us that no one else was addressing, and often we would be able to solve it overnight. And that’s one of our niches is we tell people bring us the most complicated, ugly case that you have. Because the reason that we staffed up with data scientists and programmers who also overlap as being former attorneys and so forth, is that we’ve got a team that can handle a lot of a lot of problems that other folks just aren’t geared for. Right? That’s our sweet spot. Yeah,

Marlene Gebauer 6:45
that seems to be a theme that sort of that quick turnaround, that kind of concierge white glove type of service is really what clients are looking for.

Greg Lambert 6:57
You mentioned something about a company reaching out and hiring you to do some testing with a generative AI. So and this is just a question that popped off the top of my head. So take it for that. Is there was is there an expectation of things that generative AI can do that people think it can do? And then when you actually go to test it out? It doesn’t quite work that way. And then art? And I would say, are there things that it does do well, that people may not even think about? And you don’t have to give away the secret sauce?

Mark Noel 7:31
Oh, yeah, no, no. But but these are the kinds of questions that clients come to us with, you know, and one of the back to your earlier question, what do we look to get out illegal week here, one of the things that we do is we’ve been walking around the floor, looking at all the vendors offerings and claims and our applied science team has been asking them questions about how they’ve tested it, you know, and how they’ve evaluated this stuff.

Marlene Gebauer 7:59
We run into they telling you

Greg Lambert 8:03
all right, we’ll leave that part out.

Mark Noel 8:06
Well, I mean, we will also, you know, delve into the property, trust, but verify, we’ll, we’ll check it out ourselves. But one of the things that we want to understand is what claims are being thrown at our clients, you know, and then how do we advise them on what questions they should be asking or what evaluations they should be performing before they adopt any of these things? And yes, there are, I think the the, we may have talked about some of the Gen AI ai pitfalls last year. But remember, they’re Large Language Models, they’re not large legal reasoning models, they’re not large, factual models. They don’t do multi step reasoning. But because they generate their job is to generate plausible looking language. And because it looks plausible, we tend to think that, or we tend to assume that there is a consciousness like ours behind that trying to communicate to us, but that’s not how it’s working at all. And so that’s one of the reasons that, that the hallucinations are a problem in all of the transformer models, and sometimes if you need something to be factually correct, it’s going to take more effort to fix the Add draft than it would be for an expert to start from scratch. Oh,

Marlene Gebauer 9:33
yeah. So um, you know, following on the sort of education idea, last time you are here, you know, we talked about Gen AI ai and you know, how it was gonna hit the industry. And, you know, you were kind of afraid that people wouldn’t, you know, judges lawyers wouldn’t accept it. When it came to, you know, these Large Language Models now, clearly they are there. They are embracing that, but I’m wondering During, you know, where do you think they are in their in their understanding of it? Like I think, again, we’ve we’ve seen on personal and professional lovers levels, how Gen AI works. And I think that’s sort of where the buying comes in. But how much do they really understand at this point?

Mollie Nichols 10:18
I don’t know that there’s a very good understanding whatsoever. We see reactions on, we see overreactions to, to it negative negatively, by judges entering orders saying that you can’t use artificial intelligence or you have to notify the court when you are use or opposing counsel, when you are using artificial intelligence, and you just have to breathe deep when you see something like that. And what did they mean by artificial intelligence? You know, and well, and it could mean almost anything that we use today has artificial intelligence and

Marlene Gebauer 11:01
using artificial intelligence for years and years. We have Gen AI. Yes.

Mollie Nichols 11:07
And so we received some outside counsel guidelines recently that said, no artificial intelligence, and it’s like, Wait, that’s what we’re in the business of doing. So, you know, it’s those are the types of things where you see the overreaction to the use of generative AI and the neck or the negative reaction to it. And then on the positive reaction, it’s like, oh, this can do my job. And let me have it, draft everything. And, and then then the problems that result from that when you’re seeing briefs filed with cases that don’t exist, and things like that. So, you know, we have to look at that balance and have that education piece so that lawyers understand how they can fit it into their practice, because it will be a valuable piece of their practice. But it’s really drilling into understanding how it fits in doing the appropriate testing, and then doing the validation of what they’re they’re doing in order to understand how it will work. I know we’re doing a lot of testing, putting Gen AI, ai and a tar workflow. And if you just change your workflow to all Gen AI, you’re going to have some huge problems with that. But if you use your standard workflow and start picking certain pieces of that, and use Gen AI, then it’s reasonable. So that you can make tweaks to that process without having this disaster and be that party that gets written up in, you know, the next edition of

Mark Noel 13:00
well, the result may not even be a disaster, except for your checkbook. Right? Because if you we were talking about this earlier today, if you had a document corpus of 500,000 documents, if you wanted to use a generative AI engine and have it classified those documents, say you’re going to be charged by the token, which is like three quarters of a word, figure on your pay 10 cents per doc in API charges to do one pass to do one ranking or classification. So that’s $50,000 for your half million documents, not including what you’re going to pay the lawyers to come up with the prompts and do QC and anything else like that. With a standard TAR process, you’d be looking at 10 or $12,000 of attorney time for the review. And the older car engines will rank in five minutes. The Gen AI will classify about 20 Docs per minute. For so it will take two and a half weeks to get through your your half million dot corpus. So there are a lot of times just using the stuff blindly does not make sense from a time perspective from a cost perspective. But as Mollie said, there are ways that we can use it more cleverly to say find initial training documents for a more traditional tar engine that will then classify the bulk of your documents a lot more quickly. But without as much human review upfront for the training,

Marlene Gebauer 14:41
discussions, kind of an opportunity to refocus clients on other technology that will actually solve the problem.

Mollie Nichols 14:50
Correct? Correct. And then when you talk about the cost in particular, you look at tools in their toolkit that they are already have, where it won’t cost them anything where if they’re using, you know, Gen AI, it’s going to cost quite a bit of money. So, and

Greg Lambert 15:13
we kind of we’ve talked about this before, and that there’s kind of this layering of existing technology, AI, generative AI extractive. And so are you, are you kind of coaching your clients on? Okay, let’s look, let’s look at the whole spectrum of tools that we have. And it’s not just one tool to do all problems, but it’s, it’s this blending of tools. And are you finding them receptive to that? Are you what’s kind of what’s kind of the feedback you’re getting from clients?

Mollie Nichols 15:50
Yes, we’re finding they want to use the tools they have. And so they like the message that we’re not trying to sell them a shiny object, something new to bring in to be that sort of silver bullet. But to find whatever this AI that they want to bring in, to see what would fit within what they have to fill that gap to help with whatever automation that they want to have. And make sure that it integrates with the rest of their technology stack.

Mark Noel 16:22
And a lot of times this, the best solution is not going to involve generative AI. All right, we’re going to be running automation, we’re going to be writing some glue code to help tie some of their existing systems together, come up with some better workflows and things like that, you know, there are going to be things that generative AI is good at, you know, and then we’re going to find uses like in tar and for summarization, investigations, and so forth. But for writing legal documents, and other things like that, it tends to not be cost effective still,

Greg Lambert 17:00
it does generative AI, because I know one of the things one of the early use cases that I remember hearing gaseous probably back in March, when it came to ediscovery. And we had a guest on earlier that talked about this in that one of the issues that over the past few years is that people have become a little bit more savvy on not just saying everything and you know, writing everything down and sending it out or saying everything but but you know, being very creative in when it’s time to take the conversation offline. And so one of the early use cases that I heard was that people thought that generative AI would help kind of identify when there are changes in the conversation in the in the flow of the information going back and forth. It is that it? Are you seeing any of that?

Mark Noel 18:00
Well, that is a testable question. Right. And one of the things that we like to do with testable questions is obviously test them. But what you’re describing also is what we have been built into what you sometimes heard as Diversity algorithms, which are looking for novelty or outlier or anomaly detection in the language. And a lot of the in as with tar for classification, using some of these algorithms for anomaly detection may be as good or better or almost as good, but 20 times cheaper than generative AI. So this isn’t one of the areas that there’s a lot of also academic research going on that we’re following. But, again, that’s we run into the sort of the same issue there, as we do with tar and classification is that sometimes the 20 year old techniques are way faster, way less expensive, and good enough.

Marlene Gebauer 19:09
I’m wondering, you know, other changes in the industry that you needed to respond to other than than generative AI? Is there anything? Is there anything else besides that?

Mollie Nichols 19:20
Where do we start? Top three? Well, you know, one of the things that we’re finding that that clients want to know, they want to get insight into efficiencies, and they want to know how to measure things. And that’s speaking our language. You know, we have a lot of analytics. It’s a lot of analytics, but it’s understanding what data needs to be collected in order to measure it. And then how is that? How do you analyze that once you’ve collected it, and measure or did. And so we build data visualizations to help our clients. And so we help them identify what needs to be measured, and then help them with a mechanism to be able to have that visualization so that it can help them with decision making. And many times that’s in the discovery space. But it can be in Legal Operations and other areas as well. So we have one client to has us doing this with five different ediscovery providers that they have. And they want to be able to compare them to understand, you know, to be able to look at apples to apples, and to look at the efficiencies and each one of their discovery vendors. And so that’s something that we’re assisting them with. And it’s important, because as we all know, every service provider presents their stuff in a different way, their services, the unit, the way they host data, the way they package things and the way they price it. And so, you know, we it’s not always easy to just kind of just overlay and compare. That’s correct. And, you know, and that’s, and that’s not just the pricing that that we look at, when we’re helping our clients, we have a list of what 75 different KPIs that we have that, you know, we help our clients look at and measure. Do you have something else mark it?

Mark Noel 21:42
Well, I mean, one of the one of the tricks there, as Mollie was alluding to, is have to figure out what metrics or what data will actually answer the question. You know, and that’s, that’s one of the areas where I think a lot of our both experienced practitioners and our applied science team come in, because there are a lot of ways that you could measure, you know, these these results, that would not necessarily be valid or give you good results. So we’re

Mollie Nichols 22:13
also finding that the volume of data, you know, continues to grow. And some of the review tools that are existing today are just too expensive to use. We were approached by a trucking client that had 2 billion short messages from a homegrown system with a

actually two homegrown system to homegrown systems,

not enough. And it also had geolocation data. So it was communications from the trucker back to the dispatch. And so all of that had to be put into a

Mark Noel 23:01
well, it needed to be full text searchable. But we also needed to be able to tie it together with stuff in similar geographic locations. And also similar times. The other fun part is that this data was so large that the producing party can only host three months worth in their own systems that generated but we were our client had 12 years worth produced that all needed to be indexed and available for search in the same corpus, or

Greg Lambert 23:34
are they backing this up on a cloud? Or was it was a physical drive somewhere

Speaker 1 23:39
else? That’s another story because it was the productions were all over the place. And we had to identify several that were corrupted or several that came from wrong sources or had an unusual deficit, like 1/3, the expected number of message traffic, you know, for several months compared to the rest of the years, and then provide, you know, affidavits, you know, for going for motion to compel. So,

Mollie Nichols 24:07
you know, and so we ended up building what I wanted to talk about the build Mark, you’re the one who did it. So if I start looking at Bing, that’s not quite well, right. Well,

Mark Noel 24:22
most of this, so as Mollie was saying earlier, a lot of traditional ediscovery platforms, it would be cost prohibitive. To put that stuff in, we used AWS Cloud Search and a few custom scripts and search interface, so that we could load all of that data, but then spin it down when the client didn’t need to search it. And once it’s spun down, it only costs you know, 160 $170 a month to keep it ready. And then they say hey, we need to start searching again for a deposition shins are a motion practice, we can spin it up in a day or two, and then they use it for as long as they need to, and then it goes back down. So it’s a lot more cost effective than using a traditional ediscovery. Tool. Where if you had that many terabytes of data being hosted, yeah.

Greg Lambert 25:22
Well, that’s very creative. I like how you did that. So.

Marlene Gebauer 25:27
So Mollie, you’ve, you’ve been here before. So you know about the crystal ball question. But the crystal ball question is that we were going to ask both of you is, what do you see is the biggest challenge, you know, the next, you know, two to four years that the legal industry is facing? And, you know, in your space or in general?

Greg Lambert 25:52
Yes, yeah. He’s

Marlene Gebauer 25:53
a newbie he gets to go first.

Mark Noel 25:56
Fair enough. Well, in that case, I may offer you more than one. All right. I think is Gartner that has the hype curve, you know, that cycle? Yeah. So there’s first that peak of unrealistic expectations, and then the trough of disillusionment. And I think we’re about to hit the trough in 2024. Because people as they start to deploy these things will realize that, that Gen AI, isn’t the magic bullet, or it wasn’t the right technology choice for that particular task, or it’s too expensive. Is what we said there, there are a lot of things that it would be suitable for, but you have to be a lot more careful with the choosing and evaluation. And so I think we’re going to hit that trough in 2024. And there’s going to be a bit of a correction. But the other challenge that I see is also something that Mollie mentioned earlier. And that is you see clients, but not just clients, but also courts and government agencies and regulators overreacting, you know, and saying no AI for anything, but they don’t even define what AI means, or whether they’re restricting it to generative AI, ai, or even or, or including 30 year old machine learning techniques that we’re using for everything else. And so dealing with those hurdles, not just from clients, but regulatory and legal hurdles, I think is going to be another area where we’re going to have a lot of work to do.

Greg Lambert 27:30
All right. So he went first. So you get to go next.

Mollie Nichols 27:33
So I’m going to be a little more optimistic. All right. So I think we’ve learned a lot in the past. Day, decade plus with regard to tar. We resisted it. We did everything we could to say it was a black box, we had courts, push it away. I think with generative AI, we’re actually going to look at it and say, How can this help us? And what part of our process? Can this actually make a difference for our clients? And we’re going to look at it, we’re going to educate ourselves, we’re going to test it. And we’re not going to just wholesale adopt it and throw it in. But we’re going to try different things. And then we’re going to enhance our process. And I think it’s going to be this iterative change. Because we have such a thoughtful industry now. And before it was just the wild wild west. And there’s still some of that don’t get me wrong. But we have enough very smart people who have been in this industry long enough to know don’t just throw it at it. Let’s go through a process and let’s start testing it and do this the right way. Excellent.

Greg Lambert 29:01
Well, Mollie Nichols and Mark Canole, thank you very much for taking the time to talk with us here at legal week. And Mark, thanks for going out and clearing out the DJ force.

Marlene Gebauer 29:14
Thank you both for having us. Indeed. It’s our pleasure. Thanks. And of course, thanks

to all of you, our listeners for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoy the show, share it with a colleague. We’d love to hear from you. So reach out to us on social media. I can be found on LinkedIn or annex at @gebauerm and on Threads at @mgebauer66 and

Greg Lambert 29:35
And, I can be reached on LinkedIn or at @glambert on X or @glambertpod on threads. Mollie if someone wants to learn more about Redgrave, where do they need to go?

Mollie Nichols 29:47
Sure, on our website at Redgravedata.com

Greg Lambert 29:51
Alright, thank you very much.

Marlene Gebauer 29:53
And as always, music you hear us from Jerry David DeCicca Thank you, Jerry.

Greg Lambert 29:59
You also Hear from the Legal Talk Network

Marlene Gebauer 30:03
They’re a rowdy group

Marlene Gebauer notes the transformation of Legal Week into a thought leadership conference, with a special mention of keynote speaker Bryan Cranston’s impactful talk on storytelling, branding, and the thoughtful application of AI in both the acting world and the legal tech space.

Joey Seeber, the guest for this episode, brings his experience and insights as the representative of Level Legal, a company that recently celebrated its 15th anniversary. Seeber shares the origin story of Level Legal, starting from its humble beginnings in 2009 in East Texas, evolving from a document review team within a law firm to a full-service eDiscovery and forensics company based in Dallas. Underlining the transition from paper to digital and the challenges of data hygiene, Seeber emphasizes the company’s growth and its focus on human-centric service in the legal tech industry.

Discussing the influence of generative AI and other technological advancements on legal services, Seeber provides a grounded perspective on the hype versus the reality of AI’s impact on the industry. He stresses the importance of human-to-human connections and hospitality in legal services, suggesting that while technical skills are essential, the ability to serve and delight clients sets Level Legal apart. Seeber notes the challenges of adapting to various eDiscovery platforms, the importance of a diverse skill set among staff, and the evolving roles within the legal tech ecosystem. Seeber’s vision for Level Legal includes a focus on what he terms the “excellence reflex” – a combination of curiosity, service instinct, and the anticipation of client needs.

In the “crystal ball” segment, Seeber cautiously predicts the trajectory of generative AI in legal tech, suggesting that significant changes may be more gradual than some expect. He reflects on the legal industry’s slow pace of adoption and the importance of integrating new technologies thoughtfully and effectively.

Contact Us: 

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads: @glambertpod or @gebauerm66
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠Transcript

Marlene Gebauer 0:07
Welcome to The Geek in Review. The podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal profession. I’m Marlene Gebauer,

Greg Lambert 0:13
And I’m Greg Lambert and we are recording live at 2024 Legal Week conference in New York. I just exciting. I just arrived this afternoon, just just in time, just in time to set up everything here at the table. We have a few scheduled interviews, this being one of them. But we’re going to pretend that we just pulled people right off the street here.

Marlene Gebauer 0:37
So you now you gave it away.

Greg Lambert 0:40
We’ll fix it. We’ll fix that in post.

Marlene Gebauer 0:43
It has been super high energy here. Lots of people, lots of vendors, lots of events. You know, we had the keynote speaker, Bryan Cranston was here. And, you know, I’ve been I’ve been talking to people that that this is really becoming a real sort of thought leadership type of, of conference. And so it’s it’s really kind of metamorphosis into that, which I think is a really good thing.

Greg Lambert 1:09
Yeah. Well, we’re joined with our first interview from Level Legal from Joey Seeber. Joey. Welcome to the Geek in Review.

Joey Seeber 1:18
Thank you. So good to be here.

Greg Lambert 1:19
Yeah. Did you did you catch Bryan Cranston?

Joey Seeber 1:23
I did not.

Greg Lambert 1:24
I didn’t either. So let me take this. I’m still what was Bryan Cranston have to do with legal tech?

Marlene Gebauer 1:34
So yeah, like I had that thought myself. Um, I, when I went in, I was kind of like, what is he going to talk about? You know, because my experiences with I’ll say celebrities, coming to kind of our conferences, I will say has not been good and has not been good in the past, because I really don’t understand what we’re doing. But this was good. There was a sort of q&a. And, you know, he was talking about the importance of storytelling, he was talking about the importance of branding, you know, he has a tequila company now. And so talking and talking about that, he was talking about basically being okay with kind of going out and not necessarily knowing everything. But you know, because that’s what actors do. They go into a role. And it’s different all the time. And they just, they just don’t know. So there were some themes there that I think resonated with the group. The other thing he talked about was AI and his feelings about AI. And he did have some feelings about that in his industry. And, and, but the message again, was, you know, yes, it’s here, but we sort of need to think, does it, you know, is, is it a good thing for humanity? And, you know, I think we also in our space, have to think about that, too. Is this is this something good that we’re doing in terms of the outcome as opposed to just because we can do what we do do it?

Greg Lambert 3:06
I can see. Okay, well, good. I missed it. Joey missed it. Glad you were here to feel much better. And I still think of him from the Dad from Malcolm in the Middle more than I think of the Breaking Bad character.

Marlene Gebauer 3:19
We talked about that. I thought he was still in the judge, but apparently he’s not. But he’s in a new movie that’s releasing Argyle that’s released on Friday. Cool, cool.

Greg Lambert 3:28
Well, well, Joey enough. Bryan Cranston. Let’s let’s get over you. And you certainly from so I know, love illegal just celebrated its 15th year in existence. For the audience that may not have heard of Level Legal Can you kind of talk to us a little bit about how it started, and what the trend in transition has been over the years. Thank you.

Joey Seeber 3:51
Level Legal started on the 20th of January 2009. One of the reasons it’s so easy to remember it was Obama’s inauguration day, I remember that day. And we were moving in the in the rain had its genesis and a law firm in the eastern in East Texas and Tyler eastern district rocket docket. We had some, my partner was working as local counsel for several technology companies. And first of all, you got to think back to 2009 this is pre iPhone, this is still you know, we’re going from paper to to digital. And it was in the we’ll talk we’ll say the mid 2000s that there’s no on spoken or recorded thought, you know, we’re still emailing everything that we’re thinking and there’s wasn’t that wasn’t great hygiene. The data hygiene there were the numbers of documents is growing immensely and so it became cost prohibitive in large cases, any times for clients to pay law firms. to review all the documents, the review tools at the time again 15 years ago were if there were any, they were primitive. That’d be nice. Did I say that? So there was a whole lot of review. And so my partner, who was working in a law firm, said to one of his clients, you know, what, we can review those documents with a small team of lawyers in the law firm will give you a discounted rate. And we can do it here in the district where the where, where the litigation is. So he had that team for about five years, he left the law firm, contacted me to join him, I said, I actually left the practice of law for a reason. But tell me about this little team. Right? And so it was out of that, that we grew with one team, I mean, one client, one project, and started what what became Level Legal. So

Greg Lambert 5:56
and where, where were you based? It’s

Joey Seeber 5:58
based in Tyler. I served as the mayor of Tyler for six years. So that was just preceding this. So that was why he said, Would you like to practice law with me? I was leaving the mayor gig and he thought I had time on my hands. That’s a different story, a different podcast. So look, the idea was, so as I was talking with him about what we might do, tell me about this little team. I began practicing in 1990. And discovery was my first project was, here’s a conference room full of bankers, boxes of documents, go through them and see which ones might be important to the partner. Right? This is basically the same thing, different tools. So once I understood exactly what his little team was doing, I said, I think that’s a thing. It feels like that’s a thing because of the value proposition. Let’s create a spin off company and see if we can make something of it. So that’s the genesis.

Greg Lambert 7:01
And was it called Level Legal right

Joey Seeber 7:03
So here’s the evolution, it was level two review. And level two was what we thought was our own little special QC process. Then we were level two legal because we were doing more than review. And then we got so many questions as we grew about, what’s that to me? doesn’t really mean anything anymore. So it’s Level Legal.

Greg Lambert 7:21
It’s that next level?

Joey Seeber 7:24
Once we can do with that, yeah. So fast forward to today. Maybe that’s your next question is how are you today?

Marlene Gebauer 7:30
The next question,

Joey Seeber 7:31
I’ll let you ask it, how would you how would you go ahead, you

Marlene Gebauer 7:35
go ahead. This is This is yours. So it’s like but you know, it’s like I liked hearing the history of, of how the company has has come to be so you know, what’s, you know, what are we looking at, you know, for the future.

Joey Seeber 7:47
We’re now a full service ediscovery and forensics company. So everything from collection, forensics, hosting, and processing, review and production. That’s what we do based in Dallas. Now. As we’ve grown, I’ve moved to Dallas, the company’s based in Dallas. At one point last year, we had over 500 employees and contractors working on various projects.

Greg Lambert 8:14
Have you thought about becoming the mayor of Dallas now? No. Okay.

Joey Seeber 8:18
I’m done. A long time ago. Yeah.

Greg Lambert 8:21
Our my firm is based in Dallas. Yeah. Yeah, I hear about that. Yeah. And so what what’s kind of the services that you provide now that in and over the past 1415 months since the big generative AI ai boom, has that had any kind of influence on the way that you are looking at providing services?

Joey Seeber 8:49
No, okay. Surprisingly, no. Okay. Let me just do first of all, we’re always, as you know, you’re both practicing attorneys or in law firms. We’ve been using AI for over a decade, right? It’s just been called different things. You know, the hype now was around generative AI, and what will that do? We’re obviously curious about it. We’re watching it, we’re using all of the tools that are in the suites that we use. There’s no magic bullet out there. We’re looking for it like everybody else is. My own take on it is when when these tools emerge, they’re going to be part of larger suites, whether that’s Microsoft or relativity or whatever it is. And so we we are deploying in a bespoke manner, whatever is best for that client and that project. Sometimes it uses AI, generative AI yet, so we continue to deploy it, we continue to use it. What makes Level Legal different is that we’re about human to human where a human working for Level Legal and a human working for either a law firm or an end client. And the stuff in the middle is the tech, the stuff in the middle is all of the tools that we use. But when we remember where humans serving humans, that’s where the magic happens. So that’s the core of our business. And that’s who we are. What’s

Greg Lambert 10:27
been some kind of the, or what’s been some of the demand changes from your clients over the 15 years that you’ve been in existence? I imagine, you know, in 2008 2009, that because storing data was much cheaper, people started storing things they shouldn’t have been. We’ve hopefully you’ve learned from that. What are some bad habits that maybe people have now that you have to address?

Joey Seeber 10:57
I don’t know that. I don’t know. I think that’s how bad habits are still have been bad. Okay. If anything, I think there’s more knowledge about things not to record in writing, or to record in something that’s going to be preserved. But in terms of demand change in the tools, and the technology has gotten so much better. The impact that it’s had on our work is that so much more of the junk is caught, kind of upstream of where the where the review happens for a decade, we were review only, by the way, so we added forensics and eDiscovery, just in the last five years. So you get a much richer data set as a as an Amazon reviewer, most of what you’re looking at is likely to be responsive, or at least maybe responsive, whereas you were you were running through a bunch of junk before so the tools have gotten a lot better.

Marlene Gebauer 11:55
So I mean, it sounds like you have to work with a variety of different platforms, depending on your client, what their preferences. And I’m curious, in terms of your staffing and the skill sets that they need to have? How do you kind of handle that? Because I mean, they they all do work differently. And you know, when you discover anything, you have to really be an expert, and being able to, you know, extract some of this this data? And in addition to that, are you are there sort of different roles, like both in your organization? And maybe the people that you’re dealing with? On the client side? You know, do you or have you seen a change

Joey Seeber 12:41
that way, changing the roles of sort of

Marlene Gebauer 12:44
who you’re dealing with? Or, you know, sort of the change in the roles a change in the skill set? Things like that?

Joey Seeber 12:53
Probably I could answer the question exactly the way you anticipated, but tells you that was. So skills and competence with a technical competence is kind of table stakes. So we’re looking for that first. But what we’re looking for most, or all of the things around that. So we’re doing we’re doing a survey of your your personality and how you work. We’re we’re interviewing behaviorally for your values. We’re looking to see are you can you be a hospitality expert, in addition to the kinds of things that you can do, technically. So it’s more challenging for us to find people. But that’s what we’re looking at. Not that didn’t answer your question. Obviously, in terms of roles. There’s, there’s look, there’s more, there’s more knowledge, there’s more expertise on both sides. Right, both in in Ireland, I mean, geez, you know, there weren’t even the the tools were primitive back in 2000.

Greg Lambert 14:00
You’re still using a lot of spreadsheets back then. Yeah.

Joey Seeber 14:05
Expertise, you know, on our side, or on the side of those providing the services increased as well. So obviously, those roles have changed and expanded and good career opportunities for a lot of people. But

Greg Lambert 14:17
I want to go back to the why is having the ability to work in the hospitality. Why why is that important? Why why do you see that as an important skill set,

Joey Seeber 14:30
but has it been lost? And it’s been lost? I think in legal if I can be that bold. You know, if we think about how, what legal profession started, we are we were people are humans helping humans solve a problem that they have with the service industry service industry? What? Oh, yeah, by the way, it’s a service industry. And we can talk about why and how and all that doesn’t matter. out or it’s changed. And it’s not approachable by a lot of people. And it’s scary for a lot of folks. And let’s be honest, people are not used to hospitality or even good service in many cases in our business. So our tagline, making legal human, we shouldn’t have to make it it should be, should be from the beginning. So we’re we like to say that we’re in the hospitality business, and we happen to be in legal. So when we can not just do what you hire us to do, and tick it off, to fulfill the statement of work. But if we can somehow, and yes, we use these words, if we can somehow make you smile, while we’re doing it, if we can delight you, whether it’s what the report looks like the information in the report, what time of day you receive the report, whether it’s, you know, finding out something about you, that we can cater to serve you in a way that you’re not expecting to be served, you’re going to remember that, you’re going to remember, if we’ve given you peace of mind, you’re going to remember if we’ve delighted you, and you’re gonna say, hey, those are the people I want to work with. So there are a lot of people that do the technical stuff in our business. A lot of people can host doc, collect documents, host documents, process documents, review documents, there’s not a lot of hospitality, in our business.

Marlene Gebauer 16:29
I’m curious, like, when you’re doing sort of the behavioral interviews, like sort of what’s the persona, that, you know, you’re, you know, you’re finding is, is most successful? Because, you know, your point before about how like, anybody can be technical. You know, my experience is a lot of people and you discover you’re like highly, highly technical. And but you know, I’m very curious to hear what kind of persona you’re finding is successful. We

Joey Seeber 16:57
have, we have 10 points that we, that we are looking for, and we have them articulated, I can’t remember all 10. But we were also looking for what we call that excellence reflex. And it’s, it’s, it’s that thing that’s almost undefinable, where you’re looking to, you’re curious, that’s one of the things we’re looking for curiosity, right. Your instinct is to serve, your instinct is to anticipate that’s what we’re looking for. So those are the those are some of the behaviors that we’re looking for as we’re interviewing people, because that’s what we need to provide to our customers and clients.

Marlene Gebauer 17:43
That sounds good.

Greg Lambert 17:45
Oh, Joey, we ask everyone, our crystal ball question. I don’t think I don’t think we told you that we were going to do this to you. But it’s pretty, it’s pretty easy.

Joey Seeber 17:56
Still recorded it on the record? Yeah. I’ll give you the offer record later.

Greg Lambert 18:01
We ask everyone to kind of pull out their crystal ball and peer into the future for us. And so what do you see over the next two to five years as either a major challenge or a major change that will happen in the industry as you see it?

Joey Seeber 18:18
So two to four is the window to two to four,

Greg Lambert 18:21
but again, be the two to three? You get to choose the question the way he or she may choose.

Joey Seeber 18:30
I don’t think we’ll see major impact from generative AI ai in the next two or three years.

Marlene Gebauer 18:38
10. Yeah, in general, are in sort of the

Joey Seeber 18:41
I mean, in our in our world, and our ediscovery kind of legal why? It’s good. It’s good. Actually, it’s got informed by Bill Gates. So I don’t remember the name of his book, which was in like, 99. But I read a book and he, he said something, something like this, which is tech doesn’t change the world in three years, as much as we think it will. And it changes in 10 years, more than we think it will. And so my sense is that much like many of the other things that have hiked through the years. It’s not something to be feared, but it’s something that provides percent opportunity. And I don’t think it will be mature in two or three, but probably even more than we anticipate in 10. It’s just, just a it’s just a hunch I could I could be completely wrong. I will say this in 2010 2010. We just started our business and we were we were rolling open another office and I came to my first Legal, we have legal tech at the time. And I went to one of the sessions, which was called document review. 2015. So five years

Greg Lambert 20:09
of close did they get? It was a

Joey Seeber 20:11
tech company. Obviously, we had a tool. And of course, the prediction the teaser was the prediction was, eyes on review will not exist while yours will be displaced, right? Just started this competition by future partners go we made a big mistake. So

Marlene Gebauer 20:34
bad marketing choice right there.

Joey Seeber 20:36
That’s, well, I mean, it’s informative, right? You don’t put your head in the sand. It’s not as if it’s not not gonna mature and it’s not gonna affect our business. The other the other bit is let’s face it, we as legal was lawyers, we move pretty slowly. Yeah, a lot of courts there are a lot of there’s just a lot of adoption that’s required for something like that. And

Marlene Gebauer 20:58
it’s not just the first the whole system

Joey Seeber 21:02
ecosystem, so that’s what’s not going to happen. Okay. Now, you’ll remind me we you know, when we’re legal tech 2027 You’re gonna come back and go,

Greg Lambert 21:12
Joey, you said…

Marlene Gebauer 21:14
What happened? We have it recorded.

Greg Lambert 21:18
Well, Joey Seebers, thank you very much from Level Legal. Thank you very much for letting us letting us get you off the floor for a little bit. Thank you and talking about Yes, thank

Marlene Gebauer 21:28
you very much. And thanks to all of you, our listeners for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoy the show, share it with a colleague. We’d love to hear from you. So reach out to us on social media. I can be found on LinkedIn or on X at @gebauerm and on threads at @mgebauer66. And

Greg Lambert 21:48
I can be reached on LinkedIn or on X @glambert and @glambertpod on threads. Joey if people want to find out more about Level Legal where’s the best place to look?

Joey Seeber 21:57
Level legal.com Or I’m Jay Seeber@level legal.

Greg Lambert 22:00
There we go.

Marlene Gebauer 22:02
And as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David DeCicca. Thank you, Jerry.

Greg Lambert 22:06
Thanks, Jerry. All right. Thank you, everyone.

This week, Greg Lambert sat down with

She also mentioned the importance of working with Frances Anderson, the chief executive of NetLaw Media. Hill pointed out that NetLaw Media has been running the ⁠British Legal Technology Forum ⁠for years, indicating a deep involvement in the legal tech community.

Greg and Caroline also discussed the dramatic change in Legal Tech in 2023, and the continued shift in the industry as demands increase on law firms and others to truly implement AI solutions in 2024.

Hill pointed out that many law firms lack the expertise to build AI solutions themselves and therefore rely heavily on their business partners (vendors) for these capabilities. She suggested that the solution might lie in leaning on these business partners, but noted the challenge of justifying the costs to law firm leadership. She further mentioned the challenge of capacity and waitlists for AI projects, indicating that this has become a source of competition among law firms. The ability to quickly understand and adapt to the requirements of working with AI and establish effective vendor relationships is crucial for law firms to stay competitive and relevant in the rapidly evolving legal tech landscape​​.

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Contact Us: 

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads: @glambertpod or @gebauerm66

Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com

Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠Transcript⁠

Greg Lambert 0:07
Welcome to The Geek in Review. The podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal profession. I’m Greg Lambert and I am soloing this week because I am still in Houston. I go to New York tomorrow. Marlene is already in New York and I’m sure his neck deep in some meetings. Caroline, she said to make sure she passed on her well wishes and congratulations to you as well. So thank you. Sure. So this week, I got a little ahead of myself. I’m talking with the great Caroline Hill, editor in chief of legal and Legal IT Insider, and weekly contributor slash regular with the Bob Ambrogi. He’s Friday afternoon, Friday evening for you legal tech news webinars that he does each week. So hairline. Welcome back to The Geek in Review.

Caroline Hill 1:01
Thank you so much, Greg, and look, Bob may disagree that I’m a regular he about how irregular I am because it’s very late is 8pm on a Friday, if it was any other day than Friday. But ya know, it’s Oh, I absolutely loved speaking with those guys. I joined them as often as I can.

Greg Lambert 1:21
Yeah, I’m a regular on the on the audience side. And I get every once in a while when he runs out of other people. He’ll reluctantly asked me to come see them. And then it’d be months before he’s asking again or so.

Caroline Hill 1:36
Now that’s not true. I know you’ve been on recently, and it was a great thing when you when you could be.

Greg Lambert 1:42
Well, thanks. Well, this week that you know, while most of us are on our way to New York for legal week, but I’m guessing unfortunately, that we won’t be seeing you coming in from the UK. Am I correct that you’re not going to be there this year?

Caroline Hill 2:03
Not I’m so sad about it. This is the first time in years. It’s funny because I kind of have a love hate with the conference. I read it and I and I love it. I read the scheduling i i love them. No, I never feel like I do it. Well, I was feel like maybe you should have met more people. Maybe I should have done more sessions, you know, but I do mostly love going it’s such a great opportunity to see people and this is the first time in years that I won’t be there. So I have this. Yeah, I’m quite sad. But they’re glad that you’re going you’re going

Greg Lambert 2:36
I’ll go and I’ll fill you in on everything. I’m sure. You can let me know what you want. Want me to find out for you and up here. So why

Caroline Hill 2:47
It’s not the same, but thank you appreciate it.

Greg Lambert 2:50
You’re welcome.

Caroline Hill 2:51
Do you want this face to face? I think we realized this after looked at that there is we do a lot online. This is lovely. No criticism of this kind of thing. But it’s just that face to face. You just it’s just no, you know, there’s no substitute is there?

Greg Lambert 3:04
Yeah, yeah. The you know what the Bob, Bob mentioned something a couple of weeks ago that I’ve had the same issue. And maybe I don’t know if you’ve run into this as well, but where, you know, used to be, they would like vendors would invite you to go do something specific. You know, it’s like, well come here and let us show you this or we’ll go do this or do this, we will have this conversation. And Bob and I both have been getting this kind of generic, hey, let’s just hang out and talk kind of thing. And I think we both agree that we probably have gotten beyond that now to I think last year that was kind of okay. But this year, I think we kind of want to get back to more substance rather than just, you know, kind of hanging out. Have you seen that at all?

Caroline Hill 3:55
So when what they would take he did give me like,

Greg Lambert 3:58
well, it was just like, we want to go to coffee. Well, what’s the topic? Oh, no, we just want to chat. Right.

Caroline Hill 4:04
So they had like so that we previously they had like a specific thing that they will brief you on and now that it’s just one? Yeah, I am. Yes, I suppose because I’m thinking about it that so I am doing recording some video recordings, which is mostly driven by my fear of missing out. So I want to be video recordings of announcements. And to be fair, a lot of the announcements or more even those where we’re videoing it are quite often just they’ve pitched us catch up. So yeah, I suppose if we were a person, that would be the case. Yeah. It’s funny because them? I don’t know, I think there have been a lot of announcements. I mean, obviously we’re going to come on to what those may be about. We’ve had a bit of a giggle about what in advance I I interviewed Scott Rechtschaffen the CKO of Littler, which are just before LegalWeek. And we were laughing about what some of the announcements might be about during the conference. I think people do have announcements, you know, coming up, but yeah, I mean, I’m

Greg Lambert 5:14
sure it’d be something about they’re launching an AI tool. I could be wrong.

Caroline Hill 5:20
Well, maybe they when they have a strategy around it.

Greg Lambert 5:23
Well, I wouldn’t go that far. But it’s not as much fun to be that specific on Thursday. So Well, Well, speaking of kind of announcements, the there’s some big news for Legal IT Insider, that you have a new official media partnership with NewLaw media. So congratulations on that. Do you mind sharing some insights on the the benefits that you see with this partnership, and specifically, I know, you are talking a lot in the press release about being able to enhance your coverage of the British legal technology forum or BLTF, and the British legal technology awards for your audience. Now, I will say and we talked a little bit before we pressed record, that there’s probably some of us over on this side of the pond that aren’t familiar with this. So can you give us a little kind of high altitude vert vision of what those are? And then what what you’re hoping to get out of this partnership?

Caroline Hill 6:30
Yeah, of course. Thank you, thanks for the opportunity to talk about it. So NetLaw yeah, NetLaw Media, the chief executive is Francis Sampson, and it’s great to be working with another female leader, I’m not gonna lie. But I absolutely love the fact that, you know, we’re both women, although that’s not why we’re partnering. We Netlaw Media has run the British legal technology forum for years. It’s an exhibition style conferences. I went it for the first time last year, and was blown away by how big it is. It’s, it’s I think it’s, they have 12,000 visitors, it’s not just legal tech, so they have people from law, legal technology, IT security, it runs in May, so this year, it’s on the 14th of May. And they have lots of different themes going through. There’s lots of different stages, and lots of different topics. So last year, I chaired a panel at the British legal technology forum. We were we were, it was quite fun. Actually, it was good. It I think we got in the DeLorean. And we went back in time to work out what we would do differently had we had the benefit of of hindsight, you know, how we how we would sort of look at various technological changes, with the benefit of hindsight, which was really good fun. And the partnership will mean so we we partner with we’ve got a partnership with amlaw we you know, as a, as a media outlet, you know, we’re impartial, and we will, I just want to make it clear that we will promote anybody’s conference, just this doesn’t mean that we won’t suddenly start working, you know, with promoting what legal geek or what ILTA or what law.com is doing, it’s very important that we’re in a we, we will cover the details of all of these conferences as it’s right to do as a media outlet. But I am really excited about this partnership with net law media, because we there’s a such a big synergy between what we do, you know, they, they focus on the ingredient Nagini. And IT security, obviously, that’s most of my time is effectively around that. And we we know the same people, we have the same sponsors, but we also have some some, you know, I can help. So the idea is that they do events, and we do we did we do content, we do a little bit in the way of events, they do a little bit in the way of content, but we’ve got this amazing synergy in terms of how we can support one another. So we can give their vendors an outlet. So when when, when AI can be involved in the conference, I can, I can help you know. And that’s a real benefit to me in terms of really being part of the conversation as we need to be. And also then provide their speakers with an outlet, you know, in terms of talking about some of the really important topics that they’re going to be talking about giving them an opportunity because one day it’s it’s goes so quickly, doesn’t it? And you know, before you know it and so we’ll be talking about, you know, giving them an opportunity to talk about some of the topics in advance and afterwards and so I think it’s going to be it’s a really great opportunity for both of us to support one another. And obviously, we hope that it will also grow So we will, it will help us grow both our businesses, you know, they’re going to be referring people to us for work that we can do. We’ll be referring people to them for for things that will benefit the vendors that we perhaps work with. And I think it will grow in time. In fact, I’m no it will grow in time. So we’re really excited about it. Great.

Greg Lambert 10:20
Now, you serves the that one is. That’s the BLTF, the British Legal Technology Forum. That’s May 14.

Caroline Hill 10:29
That’s right. Yeah. That’s great. 14th. Yeah.

Greg Lambert 10:31
And it’s just a one day event.

Caroline Hill 10:34
It’s a one day is when Francis is going to kill me, I think.

Greg Lambert 10:43
Well, it’s still pretty new.

Caroline Hill 10:45
One day. I think Yeah. Okay. I’m still learning because it was the first time that we’ve been involved in any capacity I was involved on one day. Yeah, Francis will literally murder me. But it’s, it’s really well known over here, you know, and it’s something that it’s kind of a highlight of the calendar. And I know Francis is growing it every year. So it’s definitely worth worth worth it worth the look. And the other. The other thing that they do is the awards, which is in the autumn is in well, but later not in November. And again, they have you know, several 100 People from law, legal sector and legal tech come, I was there last year, and they awarded Charles Christian, my predecessor who ever known who sadly passed away. It was a year ago or more than a year ago now. But it was just over a year at the time of the awards. And they gave him a posthumous award for his contributions to Nico tech, which was very special. So I was able to go on stage and do five minute talk, which had happened, right at the end of the evening at 10:30. It was very, it was very special. And yet again, the awards is, you know, something that if people aren’t familiar on that side of the pond, it’s definitely worth a look.

Greg Lambert 12:13
Okay. All right. Well, what are I know, your May is not that far away? Is there anything in particular that you’re looking forward to for? For the BLTF conference, or meeting?

Caroline Hill 12:28
So we’ve we now even as we’ve got, we’re doing, you know, over the next is going to be a really busy month. So we’ve sort of got some Mendota planning to do, I will be told probably what I’m going to be talking about the truth be told.

Greg Lambert 12:46
That’s the best way to do it. Yeah.

Caroline Hill 12:47
And then we’ve got we’ve got kind of a shedule, you know, that we’re going to be following in terms of coverage of certain of the key some of the key speakers, they’ve got really cool. Speakers and people involved. So they’ve got Jennifer Swallow, who most people will know from law tech, UK. They’ve got Christina Blacklaws, who’s managing director of Blacklaw consulting, but she’s been involved in a regulatory capacity in the past. They’ve got Professor Richard Susskind who everybody knows he, he’s going to be involved in the conference. They’ve got the list goes on. So they’ve got an Hobbie Jackson, who’s at Herbert Smith. And the idea will be that I’m so they’ve got in Jeffrey, from the Law Society, Christian Toon, who’s the head of cyber professional services, Pinsent Masons, I won’t read the whole list at the end is that I’ll be speaking to some of these people who will be chairing various of the sessions. And we’ll be diving into some of the topics that they’re going to be talking about. So we’ve got a lot of a lot to do over the over the following months, if you if you want to have a look. So it’s just British legal, BritishLegalItForum.com. You can see some of the speakers and some of the topics as they come up.

Already. Now. Definitely make sure we put a link on for that. And I like the fact that, you know, there was a nice diverse group of speakers, that you were naming off theirs as well. And I’m sure that’s intentional. Yes,

Unknown Speaker 14:13
of course. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Greg Lambert 14:16
Well, let me kind of shift gears on you a little bit, because the last year 12-14 months has just been bonkers, right? It has just been absolutely insane, especially with the type of news that that you cover. So I wanted to ask you, you know, what’s been your take on, you know, the hype versus reality that we’re seeing with with all the AI tools, you know, from, you know, all the talk about it, versus the implementation what what’s kind of been your view of this over over the past year plus?

Caroline Hill 14:53
Yeah, gosh, it has been crazy, isn’t it? And it’s been busy. I Yeah, it’s so fun, though. So in where to start? So the hype, so I think last year, people there was such a mixed reaction depending I don’t think that you could generalize you, or even predict necessarily what people’s reaction would be in terms of how they thought about it. So obviously, if we said the words, Gen AI, we haven’t actually labeled it, have we, you know, we know what we’re talking about. So, you know, in terms of where people put it in tons of books that we all need in our, in our heads, you know, it’s it was so varied last year. So some people would think, you know, this is going to this, I think, rightly, we all think right, then that this is going to change the way that we practice law. That’s what my take on it. But, you know, in what timeframe is is another question altogether. But, and I think that some people were very much like, this is absolutely radical. It’s an it’s an inflection point. And some people were like, Oh, this is really hyped up, you know, and I had some really interesting conversations with people last year that helped me put that in perspective, talking about that, that, and this is actually came from Casey Flaherty at LexFusion, who was saying, you know, that was one of my really most helpful conversations about it last year, because Casey was saying, just because it’s massive, massively at the top of the hype cycle doesn’t mean it’s not an inflection point. And just because the products are really early doors, in terms of Gen AI, and maybe some of them will fail, maybe some of them won’t work. Some of them or just because we are about to dive into the Gartner’s pit of trough of disillusionment doesn’t mean that this isn’t an inflection point, it just means that hype and inflection can go together, right, and what and that, so that was really helpful to put into context. All the conversations that I was having in people’s various reactions, and they were very mixed. A lot of people had very different views last year in terms of, you know, where we were at the impact that it would have and the timeframe. But the one thing that, I would say, is that, from the conversations that I had, I had a lot of them with CIOs, some of them were public made public, I wrote a report. That was we agree it wasn’t Chatham House, it was kind of off the record that we would agree quite witch is available on my website, legaltechnology.com, we created a report from some of the top CIOs in the UK Top 200 firms. And there was just there was a degree, there’s a lot of caution, you know, as custodians of client’s data, the the overriding sentiment from that meeting, there was a lot of fit variance in terms of who was doing what, but there was a lot of caution. They weren’t denying that it was an inflection point or anything, but they were just saying, we are custodians of our clients data, and therefore we are cautious. Whereas a lot of clients are saying, in their RFPs, what are you doing about this? How are you saving us money? And where why are we not seeing the results? And I can see both points. Does that accord with you, Greg?

Greg Lambert 18:28
Yeah, I think I think that’s spot on. I’m, I’m thinking the, the, we may be a little overly cautious. I, to me, I think some of the issues have already been resolved. And I think we’re still arguing about issues that were problems in March of 2023, rather than what are the issues now? And I think sometimes, you know, people can put that up as barriers to moving forward. And I worry a little bit about that. But I think, again, the genies out of the bottle on this. And you’re right, the pressure coming in from the client side. Just saying things like, what are you doing, give me something that you’re actually doing with this, and not just a, you know, a press release of your, you know, you’re working with some company on something that may come out, you know, 6-12 months from now. I think everyone’s kind of looking for some proof in the pudding, to seeing some real effects of this, because I think everyone thinks this is an inflection point. And to end we’re really kind of worried that we will somehow or another, go back to business as usual. But with the hopes that you know, is really not something that that makes that big of an impact on the industry. And I think that’s just bad, bad reaction

Caroline Hill 20:07
I agree. So, a couple of points. One, I still think the cost is a huge issue. So I think people are sort of excited some, some people are excited about the likes of co pilot. Some people very much already do pilots in other firms that are doing pilots with Harvey.ai and CoPilot and a bunch of other sort of in, you know, very much in the public domain cost, I think, is a big question still, for firms. You know, when they’re being asked to demonstrate ROI, it’s very early days, to be able to demonstrate ROI. I agree with you completely, that, that doing nothing, I think that there are so many vendors that doing some quite interesting stuff, you know, I do think cost is going to be the issue. But I’ve spoken to CIOs, where they’re chosen ways to deal with their business partners, that’s how they’re going to move forward, and realize that they don’t have the expertise, a lot of firms don’t have the expertise, building stuff, you know, they and they never have. So actually, they’re, they’re saying, well, we but we do have a great number of business partners who are doing some really good stuff that we can, and we can lean on them. I think that that that’s probably the solution, subject to the caveat, that cost is going to be an issue, right? Like, and how you get that posture CEO, CFO, the good thing is, I think that this is now a board level conversation in a way that it never has been, you know, when you’re trying to choose a DMS and saying what we need this much money this is this is the whole board being very much aware of the need to do things differently. So I think that that’s gonna make things easier, from anything signed off perspective.

Greg Lambert 21:53
Yeah, and I think one of the things you’re going to see is, is, especially on the law firm side, which is, which is kind of where I’m focused, those that have done kind of these projects before that have these relationships are going to do great things. And those that have never really kind of tested the waters on on building good vendor relationships, doing third party build out, getting that going, I think they’re going to struggle with this, and it’s going to, it’s not something that they can just, you know, throw kicked down the road. And it’s not something that they’re set up to do themselves. And so it’s the, you know, I think the the quicker that they understand how, how, how the, you know, it’s going to work, and how you have to you can’t just do it all yourself, there has to be these relationships and this back and forth. I think the quicker they, they figure that out, the quicker they can get back on track.

Caroline Hill 23:04
But the challenge is also going to be these, you know, capacity and waitlists, right? Like just sort of them. It’s fascinating to me that there’s it’s become a source of competition, I actually was slightly tongue in cheek writing about a firm UK firm that has become one of the testers of one of the big publishing companies, I should just take you into that I’ve written it. But maybe they didn’t realize that it was taken them back. But so one of the managing partners was very much like our where, you know, we’re one of the early early users. And I was like, it’s become a source of competition, you know, who gets selected to be the beta? Right, which, I mean, absolutely. But it’s just an another source of competition. And it is the more progressive firms who you’ve got the biggest tech teams who have got the biggest capacity to really benefit the vendors. In terms of you’ve got an r&d team, you’ve got an AI team, if you’ve got people that understand how to use the technology and wrap fairly rapidly. And those are the firms that are being selected for these beaters. So yeah, no, I agree with you. I agree. And the other really fascinating thing, talking about the client, though, and this came up from my conversation with Scott at littler. So he was saying that the clients have started demanding that he had one that time that said, if within a year you’re not using generative AI, we’re going to go to a different law firm. And, and which is a fairly, I mean, I get I get it on level. And then on the other level, I was laughing a little bit because what are you going to get? Yeah, you need it like what are we doing with it right? Does it have to be chilling like why.

Greg Lambert 25:02
Yeah. So I’ve never been a big fan of the, you know, the kind of draconian style of, you know, if we have zero tolerance for this, you’re either using Gen AI, or you’re out kind of things. And it’s, you know, it’s like there’s so many other factors in there. But But I wanted to go back to the thing you said, which I think you’re you’re spot on. And that is, I think a lot of the firms side are the those that haven’t already established those relationships, that capacity issue, I don’t think they’re thinking about that, I think that they think, well, once I pull the trigger on this and decide that we’re, you know, going to go ahead with it, well, we’ll just, you know, call out to vendor X, and they’ll be ready to take on our business. And I don’t think they realize that, you know, they’ve got a narrow pool of professionals that can do this right now. And they’re going to be at capacity. And, you know, if, if you’re not, you know, ready now and starting to prepare, you know, that that boat gets further and further off from the dock. And then at some point, you can’t catch up to it?

Caroline Hill 26:19
Or do you think that I mean, what would your because you’ve got, you’ve obviously, been doing this a long time, and you’ve got that insider benefit? What would you say what they would have to do right now, in order to make sure that they’re ready?

Greg Lambert 26:31
I think they get to get their toe wet on something, even if it’s not something that’s going in front of the client directly. And in fact, I think the worst thing you could do is do something that either, you know, is super client facing that you’re not really 100% Confident in, or go after something that undercuts the billable hour? I think those are two. Those those would be two mistakes to start off with. I think it’s it’s much more, we’re at a point now where you need to, let’s say, you’re going to use co pilot with Microsoft Azure. Right, which I think most firms are very comfortable in, in taking that approach. Pick something, as my my friend, Ryan McClead says, take something that’s like 50% BS, where it’s, you know, not super, super important, but something that you could streamline, that that would, you know, would handle some of the issues that you’re facing, maybe administrative side, maybe it’s something with marketing or business development or in client intake, something that’s on the admin side, and start getting to know how these processes work, what works, what doesn’t work? What are the tools that are out there? What, which tools work better with with this, and which tools are better with that. But you got to be doing some thing. And if you’re sitting back and you’re still planning, again, that that ship is leaving the dock. Yeah, so that’s my, and I love interviewing reporters, because I ended up getting interviewed. So

Caroline Hill 28:31
I’ve had so many, I mean, we’re not going to do this. Now, Greg don’t. But, you know, I love being challenged as well. I’ve been challenged so much on on LinkedIn, you know, not, I didn’t get challenge. Lots actually don’t suddenly everyone’s barreling in, but by then, you know, I’m, I, yeah, I think it’s important for all of us to question ourselves. And, you know, as reporters, it’s, it’s important for us to, you know, not just perhaps, roll out the same tropes, you know, like, but actually, sometimes I come across people who absolutely have , you know, a brilliant and they challenge me about, well, why should everyone be using Microsoft, 365 and copilot? And does it even work? And, you know, all this kind of this has been a conversation that’s been coming up on teams and, and, you know, why is this? Why is this something that should just happen? You know, and because I write a lot about how law firms are very much now, a lot, a lot in most cases, you know, based around 365 and that CoPilot seems to be the logical next thing and then that will why you know, and I actually, I mean, I need to think about this because this has been very new and you know, and I seen so many advantages, I think Microsoft doing some really clever stuff and, but I do think it’s important for all of us to be very to get I think everyone needs to get their toes wet. Everyone needs to learn everyone needs to play around. Everyone needs to have a strategy, but also we need to be critical, right? We can’t just be swept along Um, you know, and oh, yeah, this is just what’s happening? You know, I think it’s falls on all of us to start getting engaged our brains and actually take it when somebody goes, well, have you thought about this? And maybe the answer is no.

Greg Lambert 30:12
That’s a good point. And I did bring up Microsoft to, mostly because that’s what we have. Yeah. It’s who we have relationships with. And I think it’s a good first start, but I think your point, I hadn’t really gone that deep into it. But you’re right is like, but that’s not the end, that’s the beginning. And you should be very critical of it, you should be demanding, you’re paying Microsoft, a ton of money.

Caroline Hill 30:40
And actually, they’re in a very strong position. And we’re not going to start Microsoft bashing on this podcast. But, but they’re, you know, actually, they are offender. Right? And I would say to people, you know, let’s, let’s, with all of the excitement, and this goes for any vendor, right? So there’s a, there’s a real shift from law firm power to vendor power at the moment, right. So this is an, that is fine. You know, the vendors often, as we already mentioned, have the capacity for research and development, and they have the developers and you know, that’s fine. But they are at the end of the day selling a product. And actually, I think it’s false to all of the buyers to be to not get swept up. And this is, you know, in the way that we do because we want to do what everybody else is doing, but actually really interrogate the product and interrogate the strap their strategy, and also interrogate you know, in the case of Microsoft, I, my one of my concerns, would be about putting the eggs in one basket, right? And that presents, you know, there’s all these things that it’s so exciting. And I and I don’t spend the time going, oh, there’s so many risks, you shouldn’t be doing this. Absolutely not the approach that’s written. Do you know what, folks this is exciting? I think it’s really exciting. I think, you know, it presents so many opportunities to get rid of tasks that nobody wants to do. You know, I really, I think that people, culturally, we need to focus on some real positives. You know, I think there’s a lot of focus on risk and, and compliance, and that’s fine. But so as saying, like, contradictory stuff, I know that I’m not sure that’s very helpful.

Greg Lambert 32:21
So what happens when when you’re thinking out loud about these things? Because it’s still, it’s still ongoing? So? Well, let me put you on the on the spot, then again, I think we’re kind of leading to this is, I’ll shoot you with the crystal ball question. And that is, you know, over the next two to five years, what do you see as either a significant change or a challenge that the legal industry is going to going to have to come in deal with?

Caroline Hill 32:50
Change or challenge? Don’t you mean, so you pick Do you want?

Greg Lambert 32:54
It’s either,

Caroline Hill 32:55
I think we’re just going to be using it? Without even thinking about it? I mean, the timeframe is the interesting question, because there’s that old, you know, the old saying about, well, things will happen much slower than and then much faster than we think, you know, so it’s not gonna happen as quickly as you think. And then that then when it does happen, it’s gonna happen real quick. And so I think that we would just be using it and in the same way as I drove when I drove my car, I don’t, I don’t worry too much about how the engine works. I think we’re going to be using Genie AI without even now obsessing, like we obsess now about what is it? Is it GPT-4? Is it 3.5, though, is it? What is it? You know, like with it? I think we’re just going to be using it. I think that we’re going to be I think there’s going to be screw ups. I think that in really interesting analogy that someone made was about email, right? So in the early days of email, we never thought lawyers would be using it. We worried about there being breaches, we worried about the Miss send emails to people and exposing confidential data. And all of that happened, and it still continues to happen. Right? We did it. But that didn’t mean that, that we that it was a bad thing, or that, you know, but I think there’s gonna be lots of teething problems. I think that in the end, we’re all going to be using Gen AI day to day just as normal, just as we are with email. I think it’s going to be a seismic shift. I think that, you know, we won’t we it will, it will substantively change the way that people practice. I do believe that and I think there’ll be providers that probably we haven’t heard of yet that come in, and that and that offer the opportunity to do I think we you know, they’ll be they’ll see what, what you can do this in different better way. I think that for vendors, that there is this a section of the market where I would be panicking if I was them, because the stuff that they do, I think there’s a risk of of Gen AI , bigger, bigger players being able to do it from the point solutions. But then, but then also let’s not forget that You know, a lot of it comes down to relationships still in, you know, you buy from people. And also, I don’t know, we’ve, there’s so many thoughts like we’ve seen, we’ve seen. We’ve seen examples of big players come in and absorb everything and turn it into a big machine, which is supposedly this great big integrated thing. And sometimes that doesn’t work so well. So it’d be really fascinating to be honest with you to see how this all plays out. I don’t know if what does that accord with what you think or No.

Greg Lambert 35:30
yeah and I think you’re like, I like the idea of the you know, there’s probably going to be some vendors who will ever know, they don’t exist now. As released as we know, and, you know, it makes me think back of during the, you know, the.com, boom, and then kind of into the 2008 downturn, when big vendors would buy up some of the smaller vendors, and there was kind of this grumbling of, well, now that products dead, because, you know, it’s just, it never really worked in a large, you know, in a in a big company environment. And so, you may, maybe they figured it out this time, because they seem to be, you know, the big vendors seem to be going full force into AI, whether it’s whether it’s build or buy. But again, I think we are five years from now, or there’s going to be some big company that everyone’s talking about, that no one’s talking about right now.

Caroline Hill 36:33
I think you’re right. And, yeah, I also think that there’ll be, it’ll be fascinating to see, for law firms or corporates, the ones that, like you said about Pepto relationships, already, the ones that have the team wants to have their data in order. So the in the corporate space, there’s some say this of CLM companies are doing some pretty cool stuff, you know, we are obviously the one that the corporates that have already have their claws, libraries in order, are going to be the ones who started to take advantage of that quicker. And that will be interesting to see what that looks like in you know, whether that the others will catch up, I guess they will. But what that will mean, you know, in terms of competition, so think that there’s still got to be a massive focus on data, right, like we talked about, that’s something that probably hasn’t changed. And it’d be interesting to see how that conversation changes over the next little while, like, at what point we stopped talking about that, if we ever stopped talking about that,

Greg Lambert 37:38
We will never we that has been, there’s been a 25 year overnight, you know, story, that every time there’s an innovation, the first thing we talk about, as well, but our data’s for crap, you know, we, that’d be great. But first, we need to hire a bunch of data stewards to clean up everything. And I do think the one the one thing that’s different about this is if companies, firms, vendors can figure out, how do we automate that clean up as much as we can? That will be the biggest game changer of all. And that’s something once the data is cleaned up, and it’s set up to automatically be cleaned up as new data is created, then that’s, you know, that’s a self solving problem.

Caroline Hill 38:28
yeah. Yes, I agree. But no, it’s exciting. I think it’s, it’s one of the I think I’ve been doing this since 2014. And there’s faster change than ever before. And it’s, yeah, I can’t wait to see this time next year. Like if we’re sitting here, what what, but I don’t know that we’ll be able to predict. Or maybe maybe it’ll be just the same as last year. think Do you think I’d be I do think there’s going to be more and more mistakes? I think that there’s going to be some, you know, I think there’s so many pockets where you can already see like the big publishing houses are doing some very cool stuff. You know, they’ve got the, again, they’ve got the data, right? So Lexis Thomson, vLex, you know, they’ve got were the ones where they’ve got a lot of data, and they can ground it in there, and they can do all the cool stuff that they’re doing right now. I think that’s really interesting, too. Gonna be really interesting to watch. Yeah. And then, yeah, there’s a ton of other, you know, vendors out there that are doing interesting stuff and more to emerge. And I think we focus one of the things, we’ve focused so heavily on open AI and GPT. I think that we’re going to hear a lot more about other Large Language Models over the next year, I think, and will realize probably, that we would they were already some of the vendors were already working with those other models, but they just hadn’t gotten quite as much airtime.

Greg Lambert 39:57
Yeah, I agree. Well, Caroline Hill I am sad that I won’t get to see you in New York this week. But I am happy that we found time to have this conversation and congrats on the new partnership that Legal IT Insider has with the with net law media. So congrats.

Caroline Hill 40:16
Thank you so much. Great. It’s always such a pleasure. I’m so sorry that I won’t see you. But let’s go to hope to get together again soon.

Greg Lambert 40:22
All right. And of course, thanks to everyone in our audience for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoy the show, please share it with a colleague and we’d love to hear from you on all the socials. So Marlene can be found on LinkedIn or she can be found on X at @gebauerm. And on threads at @mgebauer66. And I can be reached on LinkedIn or on X at @glambert. Caroline if someone wants to learn more, where can they find you?

Caroline Hill 40:58
Yeah, on LinkedIn, I mostly use LinkedIn. I thought just hit me up Caroline Hill editor Legal IT Insider, and then URL of the website is legaltechnology.com

Greg Lambert 41:09
All right, easy. And as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David DeCicca Thank you Jerry and thanks to Caroline.

Caroline Hill 41:18
Thanks

In this episode, Marlene Gebauer interviews attendees at two recent legal tech conferences – the TLTF Summit and the Legal AI Pathfinder’s Assembly. She asks them about the biggest impacts they foresee AI and other innovations having on the legal industry in 2024. Their responses range from predictions that AI will help automate legal workflows and build tools faster, to allowing for better data analytics and metrics to improve client relationships and retention.

Marlene and Greg comment on the various perspectives shared. Key themes that emerge include leveraging AI to improve efficiency and processes, being cautious not to move too quickly, opportunities to reduce legal costs and enhance Access to Justice and hopes that 2024 will see AI tools become more practical and move beyond “party tricks”. While recognizing the excitement around AI, they emphasize focusing on real business problems to solve rather than just implementing solutions for their own sake.

List of Speakers:

• Paul Giedraitis (Orgami)
• Andrew Medeiros (Troutman Pepper)
• Justin Helms (Husch Blackwell)
• Milena Higgins (CloudCourt)
• Dan Katz (Chicago-Kent College of Law, 273 Ventures)
• Farrah Pepper (Marsh McLennan)
• Brad Blickstein (Baretz Brunelle)
• Brian Scherer (HeyCounsel)
• Stephanie Curcio (NLPatent)
• Adam Stofsky (Briefly)
• Kathy Zhu (Streamline AI)
• Cheryl Wilson Griffin (Legal Tech Consultants)
• Adam Miller (MIDA0)
• Andrea Markstrom (Schulte Roth & Zabel)
• Bill Henderson (Indiana University Maurer School of Law)
• Jacob Beckerman (Macro.com)

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠ | ⁠YouTube⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Contact Us: 

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
Threads: @glambertpod or @gebauerm66
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠

Transcript

Marlene Gebauer 0:08
Welcome to The Geek in Review. The podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal profession. I’m Marlene Gebauer.

Greg Lambert 0:14
And I’m Greg Lambert.

Marlene Gebauer 0:17
So Happy New Year, Greg. Happy New Year here.

We’re only a couple of weeks in so

I know we retired 2023 We’re jumping into 2024. So did you have a nice holiday?

Greg Lambert 0:27
I did. So I got to spend my 30th wedding anniversary in Germany, we took one of those Viking river cruises. Very enjoyable. little pricey for me, you know, me, I’m the cheap geek.

Marlene Gebauer 0:44
I do.

Greg Lambert 0:45
Not that much money. But we had we had a blast and really couldn’t, couldn’t have asked for a better way to have spent our 30 as the the crew on the ship took really good care of us. And we met some super nice people on on the cruise.

Marlene Gebauer 1:02
That’s terrific. I understood you went to the markets, so you got to go see those.

Greg Lambert 1:07
Yeah, the markets were all open in Germany. And so we get to walk around, look at a lot of little Christmas ornaments. And little made of wood star. Lots of stuff made wood. And then we drink. Not a lot, but a sufficient amount of gluwine, which was described to me as you take wine, you heat it up, and then you put glue in it. So that’s glue. I’m just repeating what I was told.

Marlene Gebauer 1:45
I was gonna say that’s a great appetizing description of it for sure. For sure, well, it was great. I didn’t. I didn’t get to go overseas. But I did get to go back to New Jersey and New York, which was tons of fun, got to see my parents and you know, the kids got to see, you know, all their friends up there. And I had a wonderful spa day with some of my friends. And then I also got to go out to concert with some friends. I got to go to Central Park and met up with some folks and we literally walked from, from like Penn Station, all all the way up to Central Park and just walked all over Central Park. I hit a lot of places that I’ve never actually been to there. So I was you know, this many years old when I got to the Alice in Wonderland statues. So there you go. So anyway, it was it was quite nice, and really had a had a good time. Good. Good. Well, did you have any resolutions?

Greg Lambert 2:48
Well, we’re already halfway through January. So you should ask, Do I have any that I’ve kept? I am actually doing a dry January. Mostly because I did a like a super soaked December. So I need to dry out. But as is our friend Toby Brown told me recently he’s like, Well, I’m doing dry January up to January 30. But then going to legal week, and then we’re going to be having some events at legal week and really can’t pass up the booze illegal week, right?

Marlene Gebauer 3:29
Yeah, yeah. That’s true. True. Free. So you know, do it right. Yeah, no, no. Yeah, more resolutions just sort of to be in the present. And that’s sort of mine. So that’s kind of going to be an ongoing thing. Does that work on that?

Greg Lambert 3:46
So are you in the present? Now?

Marlene Gebauer 3:48
You know me? So it’s like, yeah, struggling, but working on it. I’m working on it. So I know we’re, we’re kind of into January, we took some time off. So just sort of catching up on things. But last month, went to Miami, I attended the TLTF Summit. That’s a very highly curated gathering for entrepreneurs, for investors, companies and practitioners who are creating, powering and partnering with technology companies and transforming the world of law.

Greg Lambert 4:25
You want to know how curated it was?

Marlene Gebauer 4:29
How curated, was it?

Greg Lambert 4:30
I was not invited. That’s how I curated. Next year, next year.

Marlene Gebauer 4:36
next year, next year. Well actually, it was it was really a great I mean, I’d never been to you know, a conference like this one where you just had this kind of group of people together. And I really liked that I liked how they structured things you know, you had I wouldn’t I wouldn’t say I mean they had like quick presentations and then the You know, groups, you know, the people, and it was in different categories. And then, you know, so you know, litigation, for example. And then people who were in the room would sort of vote on, like, who they thought was the best. And like, overall, like, who got the most points would end up in the final presentation at the end of the summit? And, you know, you got to see all of those those presenters, and you could, you know, connect with those folks. Like, if there was something where you thought, wow, that would be of interest to, you know, my firm, then, you know, you could do that. And I mean, I know that firms brought clients, you know, a lot of high level people from firms were there that I, you know, I saw, so, I thought it was fantastic. And, you know, I’ve come back with like, Okay, I have a bunch of connections, not only to talk with on the podcast, which we will be doing, in fact, some of the people will say it in a minute. So this is what this this, this podcast is dedicated to as the interviews that I had there, but we’ll go deeper with a few of them in the future. But you know, also, you know, opportunities to connect with these vendors, you know, just for purposes of checking them out for the firm. So, it was cool. Yeah. But you gave me You gave me your microphones, you gave me your little microphones, by the way I bought exactly the same one. So now, I have to give you years back, but and I wrote mg on Mines, so don’t get messed up.

That way I don’t get confused.

That’s right. That’s right, because it’s so easy to get confused. But these microphones were were a lifesaver. I got a lot of short interviews from many of the attendees at the summit, to ask them about what they view as some of the biggest impacts that technology may have on the legal industry in the near future. And that was, you know, again, it was just a real opportunity to sort of connect a little bit more and people, a lot of people there didn’t know about the podcast. And so it was also an opportunity to tell them a little bit about what we’re doing. Get subscribed. So yeah,

Greg Lambert 7:04
how the hell do they know that podcasts? We’re awesome.

Marlene Gebauer 7:08
It’s like some of these folks are brand new, they’re kind of new to the legal space, you know, that they, you know, so you know, this is? This is a good thing, Greg, this is a good thing.

Greg Lambert 7:17
All right. All right. All right. So well, you did a great job, grabbing the people at Summit and pulling them to the side. But I have to say, as the audio engineer of this podcast, I didn’t really think through how well the recordings were gonna sound when you’re in a packed room with people and everyone else is talking at the same time. So I did a bit of cleanup on them, as best I could, some of the voices in order to kind of remove enough of the background to hear them may sound a little off to the listeners. And they’ll probably sound really off to the person that’s actually talking. But that’s, that’s me, that’s not the person, the person actually doesn’t really sound like they may be underwater when they’re talking. But I think they’re understandable enough for this. And I put together a transcript for the episode, which will be on the three geeks site. And so you know, feel free if you don’t quite get something. Look at the three geeks and a law blog page for the episode. And you can catch that part of the answer. We have 17 attendees who were gracious enough to talk to us or talk to you.

Marlene Gebauer 8:39
I should note that some of the some of the interviews were actually from the practice of practical AI.

Greg Lambert 8:48
Oh, yeah. Yeah, there were a few of those. The Yeah, let

Marlene Gebauer 8:54
me do that. Again. Like, I should note that that some of the interviews, a few of the interviews are from the practical AI conference that both of us also attended in December. And so was able to get to to speak with some people there. That was also a great conference. I just thought very well curated, the topics were spot on. And like really not a whole lot of overlap. And you know, everybody really knew their stuff. So

Greg Lambert 9:21
yeah, yeah. And I was invited to that one. So yeah, so so well. So the idea behind this episode is we’re going to go through and listen to the guests that are to the interviews. Some of these range from just you know, 30 seconds or less and some, but I don’t think we have any that are over like a couple of min. Yeah, there’s no long season short answers, and we can ask them to project as a variation of our crystal ball question but really kind of project to see what they Think 2024 is going to bring to the to the legal industry. So, Marlene, anything else you want to do before we queue up? Paul Giedraitis.

Marlene Gebauer 10:16
I think we should learn how to pronounce his name first. We’re doing the best we can. We’re just doing the best we can, folks. So yes, I think we’re all set to go.

Greg Lambert 10:27
All right. Well, I like said First up is Paul. Okay.

Paul Giedraitis 10:32
I’m Paul Giedraitis founder and CEO of Orgami. Well, I think with the explosion of Gen AI technology and LLM base models, what we’re going to see over the next year is that delivery of legal work is going to become increasingly automated, and eventually, somewhat commoditized. And so I think what we’re gonna see a firm doubling down on focusing on business of why applications and AI, in addition to just practical applications, so we’re gonna be using data analytics to improve the health of a client relationship, improved growth strategy than improved client retention.

Greg Lambert 11:02
All right. Well, that was Paul, Paul’s with Orgami. I mean, I think that’s the that’s

I don’t disagree. That’s a pretty safe bet. Yeah. No, I agree. I did want to dive in on one of the things that he that he talked about net was, they’re going to double down on focusing on business of law applications. And I think what we’re hearing there is, is more of the back office, stuff that we’re seeing not necessarily billable hour work, but rather the things that support the billable hour work, which makes total sense. In fact, when, if people ask me, you know, what, what, how is it that a firm should start with AI? The first thing I tell them is what not to do. And I was like, Don’t go after the billable hour, right off the bat, you know, look at the things that are in the back office marketing, library, Finance, any of that recruiting any of those business development, that’s probably where you’re going to get the biggest appetite and get people to want to do more.

Marlene Gebauer 12:17
Yeah, I mean, already seeing, you know, AI, sort of helping with, like the writing of, you know, various business development documents, and, you know, we’re already seeing it in the research space. One kind of practical thing I’ll note is, when he’s talking about data analytics, and you know, just thinking, you know, analytics in general. I think there’s still some work to be done there. I mean, I, you know, they, you know, some of these, these Gen AI models still don’t do well with tables. And they don’t always do well with numbers. So that I think is going to be a bit of a hurdle. So it’ll be interesting to see what happens this year with that. Yeah.

Greg Lambert 13:05
I’m sure we’ll, we’ll talk more about that, that it’s, it’s not just the generative AI, that’s, that’s going to be going so. Do you want to talk about our next speaker next?

Marlene Gebauer 13:19
Yeah, Andrew Madeiros who’s the Director of Innovation at Troutman pepper. And Andrew, Andrew has a slightly different take on on sort of whether we should all be rushing into Gen AI.

Andrew Medeiros 13:41
Yeah, Andrew, here. I am the Director of Innovation or Troutman Pepper. I really do preparing to take our current, we need a walk before we run. In our weird AD at a conference like this, talking about everything that we’ve done already. Well, we tried to be caught here, the cost that we can kind of take our time, or walking is not thing still. But we have to really evaluate the market. Be thoughtful about the solution that you’re on board, and the solutions that we offer to our attorneys.

Greg Lambert 14:17
Thoughts on that one?

Marlene Gebauer 14:22
Yes. I have thoughts. I have many thoughts. I think he’s right. I think you do have to be cautious. I think firms need to be cautious. I mean, clearly we have a lot of ethical responsibilities to our clients and their data. And so you know, we shouldn’t be running kind of headlong into some of this new technology without, you know, doing our due diligence. That said,

Greg Lambert 15:00
I knew there was a but coming in.. ,

Marlene Gebauer 15:03
But, you know, but and you know, obviously, you know, every every organization is different, like you have to be comfortable. So you have to do this when you know from from a, you know, a firm organization perspective, you’re comfortable. But, you know, that said, and I know, we’ve talked about this before, and you know, this is happening. And so you really do have to kind of have your toe in the water, at least, to you know, just to sort of stay, you know, to stay afloat in terms of how fast this stuff is moving like, you know, you you want to be involved, you want to be trying this stuff out, you want to be thinking of opportunities. Because, you know, you you can’t just sort of wait until I don’t think in this situation, you can wait until everything is safe and done. Because that’s already too late.

Greg Lambert 16:00
Yeah, I think I think you’re right. And I think he was, you know, he kind of put a disclaimer in there in that walking is not standing still. So it’s not that we’re doing nothing. But at the same time, I think he is right. We need to make sure that we have problems to solve, and not just solutions looking for those problems, which I think a lot of people are already jumping the gun on that. So I think that approach is probably perfect. But I Be careful walking when everyone else is jogging and running, and not get too far behind on it, which which I think he I think that’s what he means is that it’s keeping pace with everyone else, but not necessarily jumping in and making foolish decisions just because you want to do something in order to be doing something.

Marlene Gebauer 16:58
Right. So position the position two on the peloton bike?

Greg Lambert 17:02
What’s a position two position? Yes, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Man, speaking of which, I need to get back on mine. So All right, next up is a Justin helms from Husch Blackwell.

Justin Helms 17:18
Justin Helms, Husch Blackwell, artificial intelligence, solution stress, I would say leveraging AI in automated workflows. So taking apart document, putting them into the specific attribute, quality checking up, and then building whatever generative information from there automatically, that’s going to be a huge win for everybody. Yeah,

Greg Lambert 17:40
and on this, I think this touches a little bit of what we heard earlier from Paul, which was talking about, there’s, I think there’s layering of AI that we’re going to see in 2024, that we didn’t necessarily see in 2023. And that is, we’re going to have databases, we’re going to have structured and unstructured information, we’re going to have machine learning, we’re going to have natural language processing, data extraction, and then generative AI, I think that’s the the I think a lot of people right now, especially those that may not be as savvy on the generative AI and the rest of the AI front thinks that, you know, ChatGPT is the is the do all to end all, and what we’re going to see is this layering, and putting things in the appropriate layer to organize the data, retrieve the data, and then be able to generate the content that we’re looking for.

Marlene Gebauer 18:53
I think we were talking earlier, before we started recording that, you know, there’s there’s some solutions that are going to have to be sort of highly specific and structured. And then there’s going to be you know, other situations where, you know, it doesn’t have to be it could be more creative. And so, you know, you are going to see different opportunities, and it’s going to be great, I think for innovation professionals for km professionals, you know, for any professionals that are kind of touching this space, because it it sort of revives interest and some of the tools that we already have, right, that may not have Gen AI ai components, but we’re going to be you know, very, very useful to people but this this whole sort of, you know, interest in Gen AI ai, you can sort of direct people to in the right direction. And you know, the other thing is sort of connecting Gen AI ai with sort of existing processes and you know, you’re already starting to see that a little bit like, you know, the automation for example. You know, sort of writing code to You get certain sort of documentation in there and then have an automated prompt to do something and then getting a result.

Greg Lambert 20:07
Yep. Yep. All right. Well, next up, get everyone strap in, because we’re gonna get a little geeky, I think. So. Okay.

Marlene Gebauer 20:17
Melina Higgins is up next.

Milena Higgins 20:21
Hi, I’m Milena Higgins. Chief Technology Officer for Cloud Court. We are legal tech start up in the testimony,essentially litigation Something that’s been in my mind that I bet we will talk about a lot which I think will emerge next year is things around synthetic data in legal.. And we will, because we so far been using the available data, but there’s so much more that we can be doing. Like the data is not ours. It’s client data. Clients don’t want to use that data. We need synthetic data, which other industry are doing.

Marlene Gebauer 20:56
Tell me a little more about synthetic data.

Milena Higgins 21:00
Yeah, that concept is. So an industry like banking, for example, you don’t want to run people’s real social security numbers or credit card or, their name. So to train those models, he basically fake the data the same way you may wonder exactly, exactly. Exactly. So we will need to as an industry think about coming up with the equivalent of that for our industry. Like for example, my company deal with definitely, there are very few publicly trained model. So on the flooring, all the different ways I could create synthetic data.

Greg Lambert 21:42
Yeah, that one was a little harder to hear. But basically, she was saying synthetic data in order to train the models because clients in there may be sensitive data that we don’t want to be using to train either the Large Language Models or even deep learning things like that. So interesting. So what’s your thoughts on using synthetic data?

Marlene Gebauer 22:10
Oh, she’s spot on. And, and, you know, we had a good conversation about this. And, you know, it kind of gets me wondering, it’s like, you know, can we use Gen AI to kind of create, create synthetic examples, because I mean, this, this comes up, often where, you know, say there is a tool that you want to try out, or you you know, you want to you want to do a trial of this thing. Where, you know, what, what types of data are you going to use? I mean, you can use dummy data, you can use anonymized data, but again, you know, you have to figure whatever your firm allows on that. And I know, you know, that’s, that’s a big question as to what to be able to use and what’s okay. And we also run into the problem, Greg, you totally know this is that, when your attorneys are testing things out, it’s got to be, they always want it to be their data, like, because if it’s different than what they use, like, they’re just like, well, that’s, you know, that’s, that’s not what I use, that’s not, you know, I can’t make a decision based on that. So, if we can have synthetic data that is as close as possible, but yet not you know, the actual data that’s used in the firm like that, to me would is just a lifesaver, because it would just allow us to look at things, you know, much more quickly and test things much more quickly.

Greg Lambert 23:39
It’d be interesting. In everyone, forgive me, because this is just coming right off the top of my head. But imagine that you would be able to take your financial data, your client information, maybe even the emails that come in from from your clients, and be able to essentially strip all the proper nouns out of that to remove a lot of the key information that would track that data back to the client. And then you would have an, you know, an encoder decoder type thing with your system. So that the, the models are trained on synthetic data, but you could pass it through a decoder, and the information that you’re getting back is actually real data that you have. Maybe that’s too far fetched. But, you know, I don’t know if anyone wants to go into business with that. You know, give me give me a call. Alright, so the next one we had was actually I couldn’t do anything with it in and so I apologize, but we could not get into

FX LeDuc?

Yeah, FX LeDuc. Yeah. Sorry about apologize.

Marlene Gebauer 25:01
I will reach out sorry

Greg Lambert 25:03
We’ll try again another time, but next up is Adam Stofsky. So let’s hear what Adam had to say. stopped ski. Stop ski. Adam stop ski stop ski. Well, he’ll tell us here in a second.

Marlene Gebauer 25:19
He’ll tell us who he is.

Adam Stofsky 25:21
Adam Stofsky. I’m the founder and CEO of Briefly. We’re a legal and legal information startup. Yeah. So briefly, the mission is to make legal information more accessible to everyone, I think of what we’re doing is solving the global problem of the fact that lawyers are not trained communication, like at all. You know, I think they’re all so I don’t think I had a second of training, but my great communicator by the word, zero. And I feel like the fact that out of the larger pocket judges and other lawyer, that is a huge problem, that’s a huge problem for the community are for businesses that don’t remember much about law and lawyers don’t know how to communicate about it. So that’s ton of hidden value being lost because of that. So we’re kind of on that five becoming the world’s best legal contract. Now, you could question My suspicion is, I haven’t practice law in something like 12 years or something like that. So maybe I’m not the very best person to know the answer to that. But my suspicion is, from talking to legal tech companies, lawyer in all sectors, Legal Aid in house, to firms, I think things are going to change a lot less than people think they’re going to change in 2024. The billable hour, it’s still going to be with a big firms, it’s still going to be really expensive, and our teams are going to be growing, I think we’ll see some changes at the margin. But I think the basic types of law, I don’t think this is going to be the year for dramatic dramatic change. But it’s going to come over time. That’s my prediction. At our company Briefly, we’re kind of leaning heavily into human, right, and we’re using AI for certain things. But you know, our bad is that at the end of the day, people want to hear great boys telling they want to hear from terrified people with funny things like hearing aid, weigh me through, hopefully forever enough.

Greg Lambert 27:16
There’s like you still room for people, even with with AI.

Marlene Gebauer 27:20
Still room for people relationships are important. The communication part was interesting. You know, I feel I feel like well, we probably should be training people and communication earlier. Earlier than then law school. We should be doing that in public schools. Probably a little bit better. But, you know, that’s a whole other problem, too, to unwrap. You know, while he was talking about this, I was thinking about, I was thinking about actually Josh Kubecki, who just recently did a totally generated AI, video of himself. And I thought, huh, well, that’s interesting compared to what we’re talking about here. It’s like, maybe you use Gen AI ai to become a better communicator, if you’re really bad.

Greg Lambert 28:05
Yeah, yeah. If you’re, if you’re huge introvert, you can create this artificial intelligence of video version of yourself, to communicate with your clients. I want to attack the communication from another angle, which I think 2024 is actually going to help people with and, you know, part of the communication problem is, there’s just so much going on there, you get, I mean, I literally get hundreds of emails every day. And being able to cut through that. Know about you know, when your meetings are when you’re, you know, when you should have time to yourself when you should pick up the phone and and call your client. But I think as you see the Copilot integration with with Microsoft, office 365, I think there’s going to be some of that to help you manage your time better, and to give you the prompts for the human to know when it’s time to put the emails down and pick up the phone. And so I’m hoping maybe the the artificial intelligence and that copilot types of functionality where we’re using AI as basically an assistant will help improve the human part of us So maybe that’s what we see in 2024.

Marlene Gebauer 29:35
And I’ll take it from a different angle, like relationships and communication are clearly going to be critical, particularly since all of this is so new, and people don’t really kind of know what to expect. They don’t actually know how to use it because it is so broad. I mean, I’ve gotten questions about like, look, I want to get involved but I don’t I don’t know if what I want to do works in here. I’m not really sure sure how to do it. So I think, you know, developing those sorts of relationships of trust, you know, being clear in your communication in terms of, you know what to do, what not to do, what works, what doesn’t work and sort of guiding people, I think is going to be huge. And the other point I want to raise is that, yes, the billable hour isn’t going to go away next year. And yes, you know, things are going to still be expensive. I think I read the other day that what was the was like, I don’t know if it was the average or, but it was the quote was, like, $2,400 an hour for for billing. And I’m like, Wow, that’s incredible. Yeah.

Greg Lambert 30:46
Remember when we were reluctant to go above $1,000 an hour?

Marlene Gebauer 30:53
So yeah, you’re you’re gonna you’re gonna see that happening. i He’s, he’s absolutely right on that. So. Alright, are we got up next,

Greg Lambert 31:01
we got Stephanie Curcio, who’s up next, going to go on to talk about some IP, and AI.

Stephanie Curcio 31:12
My name is Stephanie Cucio. I am the CEO and co founder of NL Patent. NL Patent is a AI based Patent search and analytics platform. So we have completely changed the way that people interact with patent data. Historically, you would search through patent data using keywords. Sounds easy, until you actually read a patent. Which are very complicated, they make no sense, you would never describe a simple thing using the word you would normally describe that thing. Instead, you would create many words and sometimes make up words, which makes them very difficult to search. So our AI system allows you just to describe that thing in plain English. And our system will automatically search hundreds of millions of atoms and generate a list of high documents that are actually similar to that thing. We hold our instance, iterative so the system will learn from you as you interact with the data. And it is often seen to outperform human experts on the course. And accuracy. Think 2024 is going to be the year of IP. So we’ve seen a lot of developments in contract, review, on track, generate and document review, all of these things have been tackled. Over the course of the last 10 years, it is a little bit high. So the technology that we’re using is pretty new. What we are doing was only possible on the last couple of years. And just five McCain’s and the technology has created a lot of new workloads that were never previously possible. So the IP system is going to be a lot more acceptable. IP attorneys are going to be way more if it’s another box, but the IP process will also be democratized in a lot of ways. So people that were never able to access that data can now do so quite easily using the technology that’s being developed is brand spanking. new.

Greg Lambert 33:03
Brand spankin new technology. I like that

Marlene Gebauer 33:06
Brand spanking new. So Stephanie, actually was one of the finalists at the the TLTF and you know, I hope that we can get her on the podcast to do a little bit more in depth discussion about the tool and what she’s she’s doing. Because if you can describe something in plain English on a patent search, that’s amazing.

Greg Lambert 33:36
Yeah, that’s a big deal. And I think that’s one of the things and I think this is why people were so excited in the legal industry, because this is a, you know, a industry that’s based on language that words matter. And the way people say and write things, you know, that could be very unique. And so if you can find a way to normalize human language, just like we do databases, it’s really going to open up a lot of opportunities for vendors. It’s like she said, it’s going to democratize the law itself, because no longer is the whatever uses you created is behind this kind of Crystal Palace of words that you’ve created to keep people out. They’re going to be able to understand even the most complicated legalese and be able to get that back in plain English and that truly is a game changer.

Marlene Gebauer 34:44
Yeah. And it’s going to be not just experts that are able to sort of do this type of of research. You know, it’s it’s going to be any, you know, I won’t say anybody, but it’s, you know, it’s going to be people who can just Just say something in plain English and find the answer.

Greg Lambert 35:05
Well, next up, did you record Dan at the AI conference? Or at glTF? Do you remember?

Marlene Gebauer 35:12
Yeah, I’m trying to remember. I think I think I think it was the New York conf, I think,

Greg Lambert 35:21
Okay, well, here

Dan Katz 35:25
I am Dan Katz. Professor of Law at Chicago-Kent College Law and and also co founder of 273 Ventures. Well, I think what we’ve seen here, the first wave of Large Language Models like GPT-4, and what have you been sort of brought in through a workstreams, that were working with various different areas, but we really haven’t seen and we’re going to do more of a real engineering gulp on top of these things, a lot of what’s been done, it’s got a relatively thin layer on top of the base capability. Pretty great thoughts on the mountain bike network, while I’m looking forward to it to see you all there.

Marlene Gebauer 36:02
It was in Florida. It was it was Florida. I know, I’m thinking back. And it’s like, yeah, it was at TLTF.

Greg Lambert 36:08
So because Dan, and you and I were on a panel at the AI conference. And so we got a little bit more insight on on what Dan was talking about here. And I think he’s looking at these kinds of multi level. LLM over time, to where you’re not just relying upon one single source, but rather a large layer of sources to do that, because one of the things he said at the conference in New York, was, there’s only one internet. And once you copy the internet, you know, where do you go from there? We heard earlier, maybe it’s synthetic data. I don’t know that, that that’s what Dan was thinking. But maybe it is. But the improvements are going to come over the next 12 months. And, and so I think a lot of things that you see his limitations now are going to be there’s going to be breakthroughs, as Dan sees them in this year.

Marlene Gebauer 37:18
Yeah, I mean, he was sort of giving the timeline of sort of how stuff started and sort of where we’re at and where we’re moving. And like you said, we were, he was talking about how, you know, we started with sort of these Large Language Models, but now we’re sort of moving more into these smaller models that are sort of very specific and handle very specific type of, you know, have a very specific type of output very specific type of task. And then kind of having an overlay where, you know, you can, you know, ask your question, and, you know, ask your prompt and then be directed to whatever is appropriate to add to ask that and, or to answer that rather. And I think you’re actually seeing that in some of the vendors that, that we’ve actually talked to, recently on the podcast as well, that that there’s they’re starting to experiment with that.

Greg Lambert 38:12
Yeah. Dan’s got his fingers on the pulse, I think and so keep looking at what he’s doing and what they’re doing it 273 Ventures. So next up is Farrah Pepper from Marsh McLennan.

Farrah Pepper 38:29
Hi, this is Farrah Pepper, Chief Legal Innovation Counsel at Marsh McLennan. My role within the Marsh McLennan legal department is focused on legal innovation and technology. So we take a fresh look at how our legal team work and find ways to turbocharge it might be tests, might be process. And we’d love to make people’s day better. So an essential part of our platform is finding the joy for our colleagues and what they’re doing. Well, we’d be remiss, talking about 2024. And not talking about GEN AI, it is the hot topic right now. And you can expect a lot more dialogue within legal team about what the good and appropriate uses of Gen AI, are in our existing workflows. But I’d like to go back to basics. I think that Gen AI ai and all the hype around it, lunch of wiki real has reopened people’s hearts and minds to all different kinds of technology. So we’re kind of doing some back to basics, looking at point solutions and problems that meet that and finding that colleagues are just so receptive right now to the idea of taking in tech and injecting it into our workflows. You know, today at TLTF, We talked about litigation, but it’s really across all the different practice areas that we’re finding this renewed enthusiasm in 2024 looking at.

Greg Lambert 39:50
I don’t know if Farrah has a podcast but she’s got a great voice for podcasting. So even before Cleaning up the recording

Marlene Gebauer 39:59
Basically, it’s like, if it’s like if I could present like Farrah, you know, my life would probably be pretty complete. So shout out to her. Also shout out to her. This is a little aside. Dan was doing his his keynote, and was talking about some of the problems with not citing sources, because at the time, we had yet another attorney who, you know, was trying to put something out and didn’t check the sources, and it was vague. And

Greg Lambert 40:30
Was his last name Schwartz again?

Marlene Gebauer 40:33
Maybe, so, I think so. So, you know, Dan was, like, I feel a little bit bad for the guy and like, after the presentation for hours, like, we shouldn’t feel bad for that guy. I’m thinking myself, I was thinking the same thing. I was like, I don’t feel bad for that guy. It’s like, he knows what he needs to do. So I thought that was great. I think, you know, Farrah has her finger on the pulse that, you know, colleagues are really receptive right now. And so let’s take advantage of that. And, you know, and just but but, you know, keep it real, you know, keep it honest. You know, make sure kind of going back to being clear communicators and, and having good relationships about, you know, making sure that people understand for sure what it can and can’t do. I also love that she was hers. Her program, or her panel, rather, was on litigation. Because I’m finding, I personally am finding that more challenging to get people excited about so I am hoping and you know, as a former litigator, I’m like, I really, you know, I really want to get my peeps on board. So, you know, hoping that there’s, there’s more in 2024 there.

Greg Lambert 41:49
Yeah. And that’s been one of the things I think we’ve said a lot on on the show is, it’s good, because you’ve got this excitement. And you take advantage of that, and redirect them toward the proper way to solve their problems, even if that isn’t, what they’re envisioning how their problems should be solved with. ChatGPT. So next up is Brad Blickstein. I think this one I cleaned it up as best I can, but you may want to read along on the transcript

Brad Blickstein 42:26
Brad Blickstein, Partner and head of New Law Projects at Baretz and Brunelle. There’s a lot of talk about Large Language Models. Other GPT like functions of Generative AI. I have a VA legal up waiting legal walk in. but there’s a ton of potential value there around the building of technology. And will they project they will be working 80% faster out because they can use a generative AI built tool. I think we’re gonna see a faster building of tools in legal tech. Take it in law firms, and they will test. And they’ll figure out how to use Darren AI to build a very cool, VA. So first, look, if you’re using Generative AI is to do legal work. That delivering hour does not work. What are you going do? Take an hour worth of work and do it in two minutes and bill for two minutes? That doesn’t make sense. What I am hoping is that law firms will see that they are leaving money on the table by not building tech solutions and rolling them out via a model other than of the billable hour. And rather than having the client saying that they want flat fees, which we’ve seen over the past few years, doesn’t really work. Hopefully what we’ll see is law firms saying that we can make more money by going to something other than the hourly model for billing for work.

Greg Lambert 43:51
Yeah, so sorry about the cleanup on that one Brad.

Marlene Gebauer 43:56
Summarize that one. Yeah. So.

Greg Lambert 43:58
So I think just to summarize that, he’s thinking that he’s seeing reports where people are working 80% faster using the combination of human input and generative AI, and there’s a good Boston oh, what’s the last Boston something group? Consulting at Boston Consulting Group where it talked about it, they gave people a task. And when it was a creative task, like what’s, what’s a great new tool to go to go to market with? They worked something like 44% Faster, coming up with those ideas. But when you ask them to answer a business question, they actually fell 23% Below those that weren’t using the generative AI tool. So yes, the The Gen AI tools when used right can speed up things so and then Brad was saying, well, first speeding up the billable work. And you can do something in two minutes that used to take, you know, an hour, it doesn’t make sense to continue with the business model that we’re doing. And that law firms see that they’re leaving things on the leaving money on the table. And that they’ll they’ll be kind of pushed into a different business model, other than just straight billable hour work. So that hopefully recapped what Brad was saying. Thoughts on that?

Marlene Gebauer 45:34
Yeay, you did a very, you did a very good job recapping that. And, and, you know, I am definitely in Brad’s camp, I would love to see, you know, a new model other than the billable hour that that really takes hold, because that just I mean, first of all, it’s, it’s, you know, efficiency is the right thing to do. And secondly, I mean, I really think it gives a whole lot of opportunity for, you know, those of us on the business side of the house in law firms to really get people engaged with some of these tools. Because there’s, there’s an incentive, there’s, there’s an incentive to use them then as opposed to an incentive against them.

Greg Lambert 46:19
Yeah, yep. So I think that’s right. I think the you know, the, the, this is going to disrupt the industry. So we’ll see how we, how we adjusted to that. So next up is Brian Scherer, oh, you got something else?

Marlene Gebauer 46:38
I was gonna say next up, you’ve been saying next few times. Oh,

Greg Lambert 46:41
sorry. I’ll let you do it. This time. It’s

Marlene Gebauer 46:43
It’sokay. Okay, next up is Brian Scherer from Hey Counsel.

Brian Scherer 46:52
Brian Scherer. I am the founder of a company called Hey Counsel, and I am from San Diego, California. Yeah, so the product in it current manifestation matches startups with lawyers, and we were more independent, or small firm lawyers. And so they’re able to offer more affordable rates and more of a hands on experience. And in the future, the very near future, we’re building out a full type of support structure for lawyers who are practicing independently. So that includes community, which we already have set up. But in addition to that, it has the support services, like helping them with backend admin, bookkeeping, setting up the technology, all that stuff. And then some content events, all the things that lawyer normally experienced on the inside a law firm, but now as a practicing attorney, they don’t have. So we’re working on. I mean, I feel like you like say, AI. I don’t want to a lifer. Yeah, so I mean, I think within that category, I think it’s important to focus on how AI is going to hopefully reduce the cost of legal services. I think that’s been whether it’s more working looking for pastor or lawyers being able to work more independently, like a real platform like ours. I think that’s like, that’s when we would all be watching on when do we start to see hourly rates that are continuing to go up, go down?

Greg Lambert 48:23
So Marlene, what’s your bet? billable rates and legal costs gonna go up or down this year? It’s a trick question.

Marlene Gebauer 48:34
They’re gonna go up. So, um, I like, I really liked this, this product. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s, uh, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s more for the small practitioner, you know, small practice small firms, solo practitioners, who, you know, can’t always get the same sort of support structure that you can and a large firm mean is, that’s one of the benefits, one of the draws of being at Big laws that, you know, you have a lot of the services and things available to you that, you know, it was not something you do, you know, when you’re solo and, you know, Brian and his company, that’s, you know, that’s what they’re doing. They’re sort of helping them with all of the, you know, the admin and, and sort of non legal practice stuff that, you know, can really take a lot of time so that practitioners can can practice and I think I think there’s really a market for that. I’m so I’m I’m eager to see what happens with with Hey Counsel.

Greg Lambert 49:43
Yeah, and I think his overall vision may eventually come to fruition. But it this is a big industry that set in its ways and even with all the excitement with the technology. Changing the the the business structure and reducing costs. I think that’s a that’s a longer term goal. But again, I hope it comes through.

Marlene Gebauer 50:15
Yeah, we’ll come back in a year see what happens. So Kathy Zhu, no, Cathy shoe, you say what is it?

Greg Lambert 50:27
I’m gonna say shoe, but she’s going to tell us how it’s really said.

Stephanie Curcio 50:32
Okay, my name is Kathy Zhu. And I’m the co founder and CEO of GMO, I just streamline the legal front door and how people team, we have legal teams work much more effectively and efficiently with the business. We collect all of the requests on the business, in the tools that they’re currently using and that they love. So there’s no change management. And we convert that into our streamline, we have my workflow, automation Radek where it needs to go, we have an audit trail, or reporting and metrics as well as backwards. So the GC has everything they need to make data driven decisions. Yeah, so we have several really exciting AI features that we’re releasing next year that we’re really, really thrilled about. So a lot of product development is coming your way next year. So we’re actually focused on in house legal teams, rather than law firms. And for in house legal, what’s really critical to solve right now is a process problem. There, I think a lot of attention and focus has been on document management, CLM, and document problems. But that means that there’s still a massive hole when it comes to concept, legal team desperately need, better metrics and better reporting to run more efficiently and to also advocate for legal value in the business.

Greg Lambert 51:40
Change managers management and process. I think AI can help with both of those.

Marlene Gebauer 51:48
So Kathy was also one of the finalists at the TLTF. And people were very, very excited about this tool. There was a lot of buzz, a lot of talk about it.

Greg Lambert 52:05
And what was the part that people were excited about?

Marlene Gebauer 52:09
Well, I will tell you, like literally, I saw some guy come up to her. And he was like, Thank God, he goes, You don’t understand. I’m just like, deluged with like emails every day from every, you know, every business department saying Help me with this helped me with that. And like, I don’t know, I can’t manage all of them. I mean, literally, he was he was, like, overjoyed. And so, I mean, this this, you know, unlike some of the ones we’ve talked about before, this is specifically for, you know, in house legal teams, and that’s how she’s marketing it. And so I think, you know, there’s clearly a need, because there was such a reaction, you know, and she’s, again, she’s talking about the process, like, I mean, he’s in house legal teams, you know, particularly for large companies, like, they’re responsive to all the different departments, and they have to juggle all of this, and I’m sure I’m, you know, my guess is that each of those different departments have a different way of doing things. And you know, your legal team has to kind of figure this stuff out. And they have to turn it around really fast. So, hey, I need to understand what this contract says. And, you know, you have to turn that around quickly. So yeah, AI can certainly help with that, you know, if you have templates, where you can extract stuff, and you can summarize stuff using Gen AI. Yeah, you know, that would, that would be great. They could turn around and say something right away. And, you know, we’ve talked about before, you know, bad processe is bad process. So if there’s something that can streamline that and make it more consistent, that’s got to be helpful.

Greg Lambert 53:49
Yeah, yeah. It’s really hard to scale bad processes. So

Marlene Gebauer 53:56
but I like What was she saying? It’s like, basically, it overlays. Like, they don’t know what has to change. So I mean, I haven’t seen this thing in action. But if if nobody has to change, you know, that’s got something going for it.

Greg Lambert 54:10
Yeah, I did not see that. But when I hear that, red flags go up, in my mind, okay, like no one has to change. We’ll see. So, okay. But like I said, I did not see the product. So next up is Cheryl Wilson. Griffin.

Cheryl Wilson Griffin 54:32
Okay, is this on? Hi, Cheryl Wilson Griffin here, CEO of legal tech consultants. I’m here at the legal tech, fund summit in Miami and excited for 2024 I think, because it’s the golden age of legal access, so what I’m going to call it we’re gonna feed new combinations of data both internal and external brought on not just by AI, but by increased interoperatability, API, better innovation. I think what’s the marrying of the external and external data at law firm in a way, the benefits clients that we’ve never seen it before or really never anticipated it.

Greg Lambert 55:10
Yeah, now she’s singing my song on on this, and this is something that I’ve been talking about for 25 years is you have to be able to marry the external information and the internal information and make the result better than the two individual pieces. And so I think again, and you notice that she said this, not an AI, only issue is here to talk about interoperability interoperability, whoo. I can’t I couldn’t even say at one time slow. So, you know, in marrying these internal external data points, you know, is the dream. So I’m glad, you know, last year, if it wasn’t for AI, I thought all we were going to be talking about was API’s. And, unfortunately, that kind of got to push to the background, but I think it’s, you got to have that in order to have that. The ability to combine all of that all the valuable information that you have, and all the valuable information that’s available.

Marlene Gebauer 56:27
Yeah, we still have to figure out the best way to get the information and to and to decide which information is important. Like, I mean, this is all kind of before what she’s talking about, like once, you know, what’s the best way to get it to us, and digest it? And then what do we actually care about? And let’s because it’s so easy to just get like a ton of data, both internally or externally. And then it’s like, okay, you know, what do I do with this? You know, and I, you know, I see questions about that. It’s like, again, I have all this stuff, and you know, is it in the right format? You know, can it be integrated? In the sort of niggling detail questions that need to be answered before you can actually, you know, sort of get to where, where she’s going on this, so but she’s absolutely right. Next up, we have Adam Miller,

Greg Lambert 57:30
ready for some web3 discussions Marlene?

Marlene Gebauer 57:33
Yeah.

Adam Miller 57:35
I went with Adam Miller. I’m a co founder of MIDAO, which stands for Marshall Island, DAO, and we’re building the best legal framework in the world for web three and DAO. I’m also the host of the Just DAO It podcast where people’s starting DAOs.. So DAO stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organization, which makes it sound even more confusing that it is. It’s everyone organizations, that can be a good word to charity and association, any type of organization that wants to use the blockchain to track at the ownership or its membership, to do governance like voting on chain, and also to keep your money on chain rather than in a bank account. And so by doing all this stuff on the blockchain, you get insurance compliance, you get transparency, you can you can run and scale organizations much faster and easier than you can using traditional legal documents, for example, to keep company organized. So, you know, today I would say probably about 5% of people have heard of DAOs, I think, by the end of 2024 50% of people that, try it. Yeah. And that’s true, pretty much all over the world. I mean, DAOs, if you go back about a year, they were probably about 10,000, DAOs now they’re at about 50,000 DAOs. By the end of 2024 there could be hundreds of 1000s of DAOs. And by that point in time, the most people will have heard of them. And probably as long as a Bull market has returned in 2024. With seemed possible, maybe even likely, people are going to be interested in finding like, what’s that next big crypto thing? Dow is going to be one of those next big crypto things. And so I think a lot of people will be looking for Dallas to join there for fun or to speculate or for whatever reason.

Greg Lambert 59:14
Yep. You’ve heard the DAOs before, have you not Marlene?

Marlene Gebauer 59:20
I will admit when when I was talking to him, I was like, I have not heard of this before. And so we had a very nice conversation about what it is. So

Greg Lambert 59:28
yeah, Chad Main, at the technically legal podcast had a guest on a few weeks ago that talked about DAOs. Again, let me let me make sure I get that right. Because I think yeah, I think we may have been talking when

Marlene Gebauer 59:45
I’m making corrections to our transcript right now cuz it’s like, oh, I’m looking at this. It’s like it didn’t recognize DAO.

Greg Lambert 59:51
DAO stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organization. And you’re seeing this in crypto like even to DEI, I saw a news feature where one of the one of the crypto coins called 1inch is now setting up a DAO in as part of the that crypto currency. So, really interesting. I still even after listening to the Chad’s podcast and reading a little bit on it, still a little a little bit behind. But remember, folks, if if this is the first time you heard about DAOs, then you heard it here on The Geek in Review.

Marlene Gebauer 1:00:40
Next, next person up is Andrea Markstrom, who is the CEO for Sheltie, Roth, and Zabel and a good friend of the podcast.

Greg Lambert 1:00:49
Yeah, good to have her on here.

Andrea Markstrom 1:00:50
Hi, I’m Andrea Markstrom, Chief Information Officer for Schulte Roth & Zabel. Excited to be here at the Legal Tech Summit. And, you know, the opportunity to meet some amazing legal tech startups. Thank you for having us. There is so much opportunity to not only, you know, do some great things entirely within firms, but also let’s bring your clients in, and introduce them to not only new tech, new technologies, new tools, but also to raise the bar in terms of how we deliver service. So I think that the huge opportunity for everyone in 2024 and then the other thing I think we should focus on is just outside of service for our firms and for our clients, it’s how can we bring AI or technology for good and give back to our community. And that is a big opportunity whereI think that we can all come together as an industry and do it in 2024.

Greg Lambert 1:01:54
Yeah, Andrea is always looking at how can we do good? How can we make not just our business better, but how can we make, you know, society, we just do better community better and do better. So I really appreciate that approach to it. And I did want to say one thing is, and we’ve we’ve been talking for months, damn near a year now about how we should be able to leverage the excitement for generative AI within our law firms to find real solutions, even if that means not AI. Lawyers should also leverage this with their clients, as their clients are looking for innovative ways to approach their business problems. And that’s one of the things you hear is companies don’t have legal problems, they have business problems that they need you to solve. And I think if if you are a lawyer, and you’re not taking advantage of the excitement, and the expectation that your clients are having, you’re missing a big opportunity.

Yeah, Andrea. Pod dog,

Pod dog made an appearance.

Marlene Gebauer 1:03:12
We’re gonna try that again.

Greg Lambert 1:03:15
Well, it wouldn’t be a show of pod dog didn’t make an appearance.

Marlene Gebauer 1:03:18
It’s true. It’s true. It’s true. So, you know, she’s just guarding me from everything. But the Andrea is always an inspiration to me, you know, every time I sort of get down in the weeds, you know, and down in the doldrums, you know, she says things like this and reminds me about, like, the good that, you know, we we do and can do as an industry. And, you know, then my heart feels good again. So, thanks, Andrea, for that. And, you know, I like that she, you know, that she highlights that, what this conference is about, because it’s not, I don’t know that it’s super well known. And but you know, you can learn but you can also bring, you know, you can bring your clients to learn, you know, you can bring your, you know, firm leaders to learn and to connect with this community. So, you know, she really highlighted kind of what’s, you know, the, the importance of a conference like this. And, you know, I was glad that that, you know, she said that because, you know, I think that’s something others need to know.

Greg Lambert 1:04:27
Yeah, I think we’re gonna kind of dovetail that in fact, I kind of moved the arrangement around a little bit so that Bill Henderson did, which I don’t notice that people know. And so I think this kind of dovetails nicely with what we just heard from Andrea.

Marlene Gebauer 1:04:45
He was the first person Yeah.

Bill Henderson 1:04:52
My name is Bill Anderson. I’m a professor of law at Indiana University, Mauer School of law and also the editor of Legal Evolution. I’m here at the it the legal tech fund summit in Miami, Florida. And I can tell you for sure that anything related to business to business or lawyer to lawyer enterprise stuff area is well taken care of by the venture capitalists, I’m particularly interested in things that are related to access to justice, though and so I’m looking for stuff that that that might be on the horizon that would be related to use of generative AI in access to justice in for people law. I saw an absolutely amazing presentation by the woman from The Second Chance Initiative, which is an organization that does passing legislation for expungement, automatic expungement that picks up half of all states and then there is ancillary services and tech solutions. In fact leaking, knew that get people cut and canceled, I was absolutely amazed and blown away the Entrepreneur that had this experience. She was convicted of a very low level crime but it traveled with her, it interfered with her ability to get a job, to get rental housing, to pay for her kids to schooling. And now she raised $75M for a non-profit and I am really interested in that and if I go home only learning about that, this conference will more than be worth it.

Greg Lambert 1:06:42
Yeah, Bill, I love Bill’s enthusiasm on that and his focus on Access to Justice, which, you know, you go back to the statistics, you know, something like 80% of the people are underserved in, in the legal in their legal needs here in the United States. And so got it just seems like AI is, you know, a great tool to help kind of narrow that down. Even if even if you chop off a few percentage points, it’s a lot of people that would otherwise go go unserved. So and I think his example of the Second Chance initiative, and they’re working at expungements, so that people can get, you know, some of that albatross off of their necks and move on with their life without, you know, forever being punished for something that, in the great scheme of things may not matter and what they need to do today.

Marlene Gebauer 1:07:44
Yeah, so I think Bill highlighted again, another aspect of the TLTF. Summit, is that there, there was this focus on on access justice, I did see this presentation. And I mean, there were tears in the audience, and some of them were mine. You know, it was, it was very move, it was very moving. And just really incredible what, what they’ve been able to do, and I do hope that we can get some representatives on for the future for the podcast. You know, another thing I’ll highlight is, you know, again, sort of the giving back aspect of the, of the summit, you know, one of the evenings, you know, one of the the, one of the activities was that there was a number of local charities where you would participate. So you were like building bikes, or, you know, you were interacting with so, you know, dogs for adoption, you were building different things. And so this is something that, you know, you could, you know, all of us, you know, a number of us, basically, we’re doing different ones, and that was, you know, that was sort of the key that was like the key activity for the evening, which I thought was pretty cool and very different. So again, that just kind of goes back to to what the conference does. And, you know, I agree with Bill that that again, I mean, if you could just sort of go away with that. Then, you know, you’ve you’ve you’ve gotten, you’ve gotten a lot out of out of out of the summit.

Greg Lambert 1:09:22
All right. Well, Marlene, are you ready for our last person?

Marlene Gebauer 1:09:27
Our last one.

Greg Lambert 1:09:29
So this is Jacob Beckerman from macro.com.

Marlene Gebauer 1:09:32
Jake from macro Beckerman.

Jacob Beckerman 1:09:34
I run macro.com We make a document editor basically a complete replacement for Word, Acrobat,Litera Compare AI powered. We make it easy to edit, red line and whatever you got? So I think we had a massive AI revolution in 2023, But it does actually take a while to productize those. So productization of all of the advancements building those in thoughtful ways into products that people can use. I think the first wave was a little bit of party tricks. And hopefully hopefully next year we can build some really good software.

Greg Lambert 1:10:17
So a lot of

Marlene Gebauer 1:10:18
Party Tricks!

Greg Lambert 1:10:19
Party tricks this year novelties, party trick, cigars. Yeah, we’re joking, but I think he’s right. I think we saw a lot of things that looked good. But if you scratched the surface a little bit was, you know, essentially a wrapper on on some tools that may change over time and make this initial product completely obsolete in a matter of days. So what do you see? Do you think we’re ready to go beyond party tricks?

Marlene Gebauer 1:10:56
It was funny, like, I was listening, just now that I heard party tricks. And I immediately I don’t know why this came to mind. But I thought of Fred and George for from Harry Potter. And what is it? What is it? Is it Zonks Emporium or something that they they run with, with the different jokes? So I think I, you know, I get what he’s saying. You know, what I mean? Think about it, when we started out, like we were talking about, like, Hey, can write you a birthday poem or a song or, you know, it can do all of your, your headshot pictures are half you and you know, picture of you in some weird universe and stuff. And so it was it was like fun. But, you know, sort of useful, but not super useful. But I do think we, we move very rapidly into areas where in fact, it wasn’t as useful. And, you know, is that kind of the detail, highly specific type of legal work, you know, maybe, you know, editing of documents, if it’s got to be really, you know, tight? No, probably not. But, you know, when we’re talking about initial drafts, you know, emails, you know, emails with feeling, you know, those types of things it does do, and does pretty well, like summary, summarizing things, you know, it does. So, I, you know, I think this year is going to be a lot more exploration. I mean, for for organizations that are using it, taking a look at what people are using it for, kind of running those tests, seeing if those are valuable use cases. And, you know, marketing that marketing that further, because, you know, there’s going to be a million different ways people use these things. It’s just a question of, you know, from an organizational perspective, what are you going to promote? That’s, that’s going to have a business impact?

Greg Lambert 1:12:59
Yeah, yeah. I think, you know, people are beyond the, you know, the awe and shock that we initially saw in 2023. And now it’s going to be, you know, where’s the beef? You know, where, where is the actual thing that is going to going to actually change the way that I practice law, or I write documents or review documents? Or do my daily work?

Marlene Gebauer 1:13:29
I love that. Go ahead.

Greg Lambert 1:13:33
No, no, no, I know, I that. I get this you know, there’s a reason I have gray hairs. So I can

Marlene Gebauer 1:13:38
I love that you combined and 80s reference with Gen AI? No, I, you get you get points for that. You definitely get points for that.

Greg Lambert 1:13:47
All right. Well, that was the end of the interviews that you did. Again, Marlene, thank you very much for going down there. And talking with all these people. You know, a lot of times people asked me, What’s the biggest benefit of having a podcast like this, is the fact that if it weren’t for this, there really would be no good reason for us to go up and talk to 17-18 different people and get their, you know, quick opinions on something. So this, this gives us that opportunity to meet people beyond our sphere. And that. So thank you for exposing that.

Marlene Gebauer 1:14:28
and connect and connect them, you know, connect to them, both connect guests with guests and connect guests with, you know, other members of our firm. So, you know, really quite a benefit.

Greg Lambert 1:14:41
Yeah, it sure is. So, thank you very much. And again, thanks to the 18 different folks that talk to us, both at the AI conference in New York and at the TLTF summit in Miami.

Marlene Gebauer 1:14:58
Yes and and thanks You everybody who took the time to sit with me and do the interviews, apologies for the sound, you know, we live in learn. And you know, I certainly have. So I will make sure that next time it’s a better spot

Greg Lambert 1:15:14
have different problems, it’ll just be different.

Marlene Gebauer 1:15:16
They’ll have different problems like you know, but we’ll try it, we’ll try and find a quiet corner someplace. So, and I want to say thank you to our audience, for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. You know, we really do appreciate you taking the time to listen, we appreciate hearing from you, and hearing how you know how impactful this podcast is on all of you. So thankfully, thank you for that. If you enjoy the show, share it with a colleague, we’d love to hear from you. So reach out to us on social media. I can be found on LinkedIn, or on x at @gebauerm and on Threads at @mgebauer66.

Greg Lambert 1:15:56
And I can be reached on LinkedIn and I think one of my resolutions for 2024 may be to finally just let go of x. We’ll see we’ll see I’m still on there at @glambert. But I’ll also keep an eye out on Threads and you can reach me there at @glambertpod.

Marlene Gebauer 1:16:16
So threads and Instagram seem to be connected. Have you seen that? Yeah, they are. They are so yep, there’s some there’s that I’m not an expert. I’m not really like there but I’m not really the poster. I’m not really doing anything so and also want to say thank you to Jerry David DeCicca who is the creator of the music that you hear on The Geek in Review podcast so thank you Jerry!

Greg Lambert 1:16:43
That is someone we are not giving up on in the new year.

Marlene Gebauer 1:16:46
Absolutely not. No AI generated music

Greg Lambert 1:16:52
All right, well thanks everyone and Happy New Year.

Marlene Gebauer 1:16:54
Happy New Year all.

In this episode, Greg Lambert speaks with Whitney Triplet, Paul Campbell, and Adonica Black about the LexisNexis African Ancestry Network and LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation Fellowship 2023 cohort. They discuss the goal of the fellowship program and the projects undertaken by the fellows, including technology solutions to alleviate racial bias in jury selection and law clinic support tools to combat systemic racism in the legal system. The conversation also covers the role of analytics in identifying and addressing disparities in the legal system, as well as the future of the fellowship program and initiatives.

Takeaways

Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠ | ⁠YouTube⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Contact Us: 

Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
Threads: @glambertpod or @gebauerm66
Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.com
Music: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠

Transcript

Greg Lambert 0:09
Welcome to The Geek in Review. The podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal profession. I’m Greg Lambert and I will be running this one so low as Marlene had some things pop up that caused her not to be able to attend this and she sends her apologies to everyone. But on this week’s episode, we are very, very happy to talk with two of the fellows from the LexisNexis African Ancestry Network and LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation Fellowship 2023 cohort. We have Whitney Triplet is a 3L at Southern University Law Center and co author of the paper Technology Solutions to Alleviate Jury Biases. Whitney, great to have you on.

Whitney Triplet 1:00
Thank you so much for having me, Greg.

Greg Lambert 1:03
And we also have Paul Campbell, who is a fourth year of his part-time studies at the University of the District of Columbia, David David A. Clarke School of Law and co authored the paper Law Clinic Support Tools and Resources to Combat Systemic Racism in the Legal System. Paul, thanks for being here as well.

Paul Campbell 1:25
Thank you for having me, sir.

Greg Lambert 1:27
And we are also thrilled to have Adonica Black, the Director of Global Diversity and Inclusion for LexisNexis legal and professional and she is the also the Director of LexisNexis’ African Ancestry Network and, and LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation Fellowship. So wow, you get like three jobs, right?

Adonica Black 1:49
There’s a few in there.

Greg Lambert 1:52
Well, that’s good. I’m sure you get three salaries as well.

Adonica Black 1:55
Of course.

Greg Lambert 1:58
So Well, thank you. Thank you, Adonica for being here as well.

Adonica Black 2:03
Thanks for having me, Greg. Happy to be here.

Greg Lambert 2:06
All right, so Adonica, a couple of years ago, we had Ronda Bazley Moore from LexisNexis, about the previous 2022 report where fellows from the historically black colleges and universities or HBCUs. Law schools were given one very, very complex task, and that was to uncover how LexisNexis products could be used to address and eliminate systemic racism in the legal system. So can you tell us a little bit about what the goal was for the 2023 report and fellowship program?

Adonica Black 2:44
Absolutely. So just as you said, we have had three cohorts now of fellows since we started the fellowship in 2021. And so in that time, we’ve had 45 fellows as of the end of this year’s cohort. And in the first two years, we had fellows working on individual projects that we asked them to propose the solution using LexisNexis is legal technology in our amazing talent to tackle systemic racism and systemic inequities in our legal system. And after two years, we had about 30 projects. And we sat back and recognized that we were at a point where we needed to really dive deeper into where we could drive impact. So with our third cohort, we adjusted the model to have a project based approach with teams. And we had 15 fellows this year on five teams reach, and had them really focus on a specific area that we after reviewing those previous years identified that we could actually do something about. And the unifying theme between those projects were the marrying of technology, and their legal acumen to really impact issues within the legal system positively and advance Equity. So we had our 50 fellows this year working on those five projects. And I’ll just give you a quick overview of what they were. Why I like to call them kind of cradle to grave issues that we encounter in the legal system. Because we truly start from youth. Our first project called the Gavel League is a mobile application. And their project is focused on developing a mobile app that’s been gamified to increase literacy and comprehension of critical rule of law concepts for youth and for children, and also for their parents and their guardians to help them understand kind of what are the rights what rights your children have? And in our research, we uncovered that the lack of representation of legal profession really starts from youth. And from maybe sometimes having a negative impression or negative association with the legal system, so we’re stuck trying to correct that in the beginning. And then moving forward to our next project. Our next project is I, Too, Sing America, uncovering untold US history through the law. And that particular project is focused on creating an accessible repository of inclusive curriculum resources for law school instruction. So once you actually come interested in the law, you go into law school, what are you actually going to learn in law school, and that project is focused on making the curriculum more culturally competent, so that all lawyers not just a specific background, can really zealously advocate for all of their clients. And then the third project, once you’ve left law school, that you think about being professional. So that is our Pathways to Practice Pipeline: Building Bridges for HBCU Students to Legal Fields Lacking Diversity. And that project is focused on three arms of the profession, the judicial clerkship, corporate counsel, and big law representation of Diversity in the profession. So providing resources to help underrepresented attorneys be successful and become leaders in the profession themselves. We’ve got our fourth project, that’s Technology Solutions to Alleviate Racial Bias in Jury Selection, which Whitney is going to tell us all about. But just very quickly, focus on our right to a representative jury, and our legal system. And then our fifth project is our Law Clinic Support Tools & Resources to Combat Systemic Racism in the Legal System, which Paul will tell us about, and that really is about how people access justice in our country. Many people don’t have access to justice, but through a legal clinic, so they focused on how to make this legal clinics more effective. So that really is the kind of cradle to grave approach we’re taking and thinking about how do we incrementally impact the legal system?

Greg Lambert 6:59
Yeah, that sounds like a great way to organize a very, again, a very complex topic. And before we dive in into the individual papers with the with Paul and Whitney, I’m assuming and I, if I remember, right, from looking at your co authors, they were at other HBCUs as well. So this was a remote type project. How did you find that? Did you find that you made new friendships and and relationships with with folks at other schools? Whitney, I’ll ask you that one.

Whitney Triplet 7:40
Sure. We utilize it was kind of a hybrid thing. So we started online, and we were able to meet in person twice. But the structure of it, it did allow us to be able to meet new friends. Funny story really quickly Favour [Okhuevbie]. One of the young ladies on my team, she and I had just attended the Miss JD Conference in Washington, maybe a month or so before that. So you know, we saw each other online. And when we met as a group, and when we finally met in the airport, like, wow, I know you from somewhere. It was like, Well, yeah, you know, we’re in LexisNexis together, and she was like, I remember you from Miss JD. So it was really fine getting to connect with people in other regions.

Greg Lambert 8:29
Paul, how was your experience?

Paul Campbell 8:32
Same with wonderful, you know, meeting other students from throughout the country and learning about their experiences and their plans and all the wonderful things that they’re doing with their different clerkships and internships.

Greg Lambert 8:50
Well, the collaboration, especially the remote, and being able to make it a hybrid situation, probably much better than the two previous cohorts, I think, who, who may have had to do everything online, if I recall

Adonica Black 9:06
Well, in the first year, we did get a chance to get together because that was at the end of 2021. And it was a very controlled, when tested for it kind of very small gathering. And then in 2022, we did have a larger gathering, which was nice to actually see each other in real life. But this year, like Whitney said, we got a chance to see each other twice. So that was really nice, because he just build on those bonds. And we did fun things to like we did. One of the I think the mission of the fellowship, in addition to advancing the rule of law is developing our fellows and making sure that they’re really well prepared to be legal professionals. So a big part of the legal profession, in addition to your education are, you know, kind of your social skills and business acumen. So we took our fellows through a golf clinic, we did a wine tasting where they learned kind of how do you do a business dinner with a client so we did some fun things too. which is great.

Greg Lambert 10:00
Awesome, good, good. It’s nice to have a well rounded experience like that. So well, I want to go through both of your papers and just kind of talk about some of the highlights of that. And, Paul, I’m going to start with you. But I’m going to encourage Whitney and Adonica, if you get some comments, please feel free to jump in. So, Paul, your paper focused on the Law Clinic phase, the I think it was the fifth phase, or fifth part of this, and it was on support tools and resources to combat systemic racism in the legal system. What in during your research on this? What do you believe are the most critical steps needed for this reform?

Paul Campbell 10:54
That’s a great question, I definitely think that additional funding and resources for legal clinics will be the most critical steps because those actions will allow more low income people to receive the legal services that they need. So many people are turned away, or they’re only given limited services, because of the clinical resources. So sometimes the resources are human. But sometimes, they’re found in other sources, such as AI tools, which will allow clinics to be more efficient. So for example, I’m currently a student attorney. And a significant portion of my time during intake days is spent getting personal information from the clients. And when you have AI tools that can extract that information quicker, then it will allow student attorney such as myself or clinical supervisors, to spend more time focusing on legal analysis and providing other services.

Greg Lambert 11:58
So were there any I know they had that that tool there? And that’s something that I think affects pretty much all legal practices with your solo or in a in a large firm or even even in government is that you know, almost clerical type information where you’re having to take that same information and put it in multiple places, is something that hopefully we can get the the technology to, to advance. But so let me ask you, how do you how do you see the role of legal education evolving, to better prepare future lawyers for addressing issues of Equity and justice? So what’s kind of been your experience?

Paul Campbell 12:44
Well, I noticed that more law schools are offering classes which are geared towards people who are interested in making our society a more perfect union. You know, many battles that affect Equity, injustice, in our country are fought in the courts. And I think law schools will continue to create people who will sacrifice for the greater good. The ABA requirement for experiential learning is very helpful. And so it doesn’t require clinical participation. But many law students are choosing to participate in legal clinics. So I think, in addition to those requirements, just the curriculum expansion, so that people can learn about history, trailblazers, as well as the current conditions, which impact many people in our country.

Greg Lambert 13:38
Well said, well said, so can you share any of the personal experiences on you know, the work that that you’ve done that may have shaped or your own experiences that has shaped your view on Equity in the legal system?

Paul Campbell 13:55
Well, I think we have a great legal system, one of the best in the world. But it’s not perfect, especially regarding the way that some such as African Americans, like myself are treated sometimes. But I was deeply influenced by Thurgood Marshall. And he showed me that we can take action to improve the legal system and create a better tomorrow.

Greg Lambert 14:22
Awesome, that’s he’s my hero, too. So what’s the future look look like for you? What kind of career aspirations do you have either within or outside the legal industry?

Paul Campbell 14:39
Well, I hope to pass the Florida Bar and practice real estate law. And I’m also in the Army Reserves. So I hope to you know, stick with it and retire. Right now. I’m a signal officer, so I hope to switch to become a JAG officer.

Greg Lambert 14:56
Awesome. Awesome. So I’m, I’m an old enlisted guy. From the from the 80s. So we had different colored uniforms back then backbone.

Paul Campbell 15:10
So thank you for your service, sir.

Greg Lambert 15:12
Thank you. Well, Whitney, let’s let’s turn to you now. And your contribution to the report was a, you researched and discussed technology solutions to alleviate racial bias in jury selection. And I think a lot of us don’t really kind of think about that. So could you elaborate a little bit more on the key strategies and solutions that can be implemented to achieve in this that you found in your report?

Whitney Triplet 15:44
Certainly. So like you said, a lot of people don’t realize the intricacies that jury selection, and that whole process entail So just briefly, the jury pool is so like the randomly using, you know, whatever your jurisdiction has decided it’s going to be their source. So they pull those names, and randomly, so to speak, people receive summons. And once you receive that summons, you come in, and you go through an interview, or voir dire, and certain jurors are kit, certain jurors are excluded, and the law allows in most jurisdiction, it allows a certain amount of people to be dismissed for no reason at all, the attorney or the prosecutor has, you know, no obligation to tell why they are sending this person away. But it cannot be based on race in particular, which is what we focused on. And in a lot of areas, people are being dismissed because of their race. So our project wanted to determine how we could help people to one realize their implicit biases that are causing some of these strikes. Because we like to believe that people have good intentions, when you know, serving in the Justice Department, we like to believe that some of these are not necessarily intentional choices. So one, we wanted to look at the implicit bias. And two, we wanted to see what could LexisNexis provide, that would help to check those biases. So we were able to come up with or further because the cohort last year started here. So we were able to further a jury selection dashboard. And what it does, it allows you to see what a jury should look like or what the composition should look like, based on the demographics of that particular jurisdiction. So it’s a guide.

Greg Lambert 17:38
is the guide directed toward the the attorneys in Voir Dire or is it the judge? Who would be the best to receive this information?

Whitney Triplet 17:54
So it’s multipurpose, and it is suited for all practitioners, whether you’re the judge and someone who’s challenging a strike that the opposition has made. And you want to see, you know, what are your really your range of, Okay, should I let this person be dismissed? Or can the numbers not support dismissing this person, so it does provide help for the judge. But it also provides like a checking system for attorneys and for prosecutors, because, you know, based on the jurisdiction, I should have a certain amount of this race, a certain amount of the next race and a certain amount of this race, to make a what we call a fair cross section. So it’s really able, you know, to assist everybody that’s in that process.

Greg Lambert 18:42
Okay. What do you think are some of the biggest challenges that you’ve identified in your research when it comes to trying to ensure this racial equality within the legal system, especially within jury selection?

Whitney Triplet 18:59
The biggest problem is definitely systematic. The law allows, like I said, a person to be removed from the perspective jury, so it’s really hard to want someone or a group of people to follow a kind of undefined law, because the Constitution doesn’t say that, you know, word for word or verbatim, that a jury has to look like the community. But case law tells us that it does. So you know, case law is not always as strong as what the Constitution says or it’s arguable that this is not even a requirement. So getting people to adhere to moral values versus necessarily the black letter law is the most difficult and then in addition to that, and to compound that problem. You want your client to win. So you want to make choices that are going to be beneficial to your client. And even if those choices sometimes push the envelope of what should be morally acceptable.

Greg Lambert 20:07
Yeah, I can, I can see that’s that’s going to be a large obstacle. So. So how do you plan to continue making this type of positive impact in advancing the rule of law, and when once you graduate?

Whitney Triplet 20:23
I plan to continue taking opportunities, such as the LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation, and the African Ancestry Network Fellowship that was provided, and just learn as much as I can and just to be a tool to my community, wherever I’m needed, wherever I can pitch in, and I see there’s a problem. And I’m capable of providing a solution just to have that availability.

Greg Lambert 20:46
Well, thanks both of you for for taking the time and making effort and contributing to the report. I think this is something that everyone can take a look at and learn from so Adonica, I want to I want to come back to you. And so from your perspective, at LexisNexis, what role do you think that analytics can play in identifying and addressing some of the disparities in the legal system? Because I think once people kind of see the numbers, it can kind of make it real for for people.

Adonica Black 21:29
Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head there, Greg, at our organization, we are absolutely focused on bringing reliable artificial intelligence, including analytics, generative AI, visualization, data analytics, all kinds of technology, on to the legal community. And one of the things I’ve really been thinking about is, what does inclusion and Diversity have to do with this wave of technology? And one of the things that keeps standing out to me is this technology is perfectly imperfect, right? So whatever you put into it is exactly what you’re gonna get out of it every time, which I think is amazing. But also can be scary if you don’t put the right things into it. Right. So to your question about what role can data analytics and technology play in this? I think that if we are able to put the right inputs into this technology to recognize bias, one, that means we have to accept that biases do exist. And then make sure that we have diverse data sets that we are capturing a full breadth of experiences. And then through that utilize this technology to uncover that data, recognize those patterns, and really help us understand why and what is so similar when these issues occur over time through our data analytics. And I think we have an amazing opportunity here to do that. Because the technology, again, is perfectly imperfect. So it will perfectly recognize these patterns that sometimes humans may miss or avoid, if we set it to do that. So I think that there’s this amazing precipice that we could do something about.

Greg Lambert 23:19
Whitney, and Paul, I want to follow up with you guys on on this and drag you drag you into the analytics issue. Because I’m sure that in your research, that one, you were able to access some of the analytics that were provided with the tools that were given to you. And also I’m assuming here, but also you may have been given some guidance, some some guidance from people on how to use the analytics and approach it in into your research. So Whitney, let me ask you Is that how did that help kind of back up the things that you were finding was some some actual statistics?

Whitney Triplet 24:01
So we were fortunate enough to be able to administer a survey. And that survey allowed us to gather real time and current sentiments on how people feel about the judicial process. And one that allowed us to have a foundation and to establish, you know, statistically that there is a problem, you know, when I’m making up this problem is not fabricated. This is what the public says, and this is what we notice, these are the reasons for it. So having those numbers one is supports our purpose, it supports the work that we’re doing. And also as Adonica said, what you put into the system is what you get out of it. So we were afforded the ability to go through with a data specialist to go through the numbers that we collected, and to be able to say, Okay, we asked this question this way. But the way we asked this question could have been biased, so let’s change it to reflect you know what we really meant, so that we can get a more accurate showing. So looking at the numbers and applying them to the problem, it provides a better source for the data that we’re going to input into these artificial intelligence systems to make sure that we are not adding our own biases to the dataset.

Greg Lambert 25:13
Interesting. Yes, surveys are a unique animal and have to be viewed. And certainly that’s why there’s professionals that that do the So, Paul, what about you? What kind of analytics experience did you have in your in your research?

Paul Campbell 25:33
Yeah, so we had great mentors, Mr. Kidd, you know, he’s a big statistics guy. And we did a survey as well of the clinicians throughout the country. So we were able to find out, what is it that these legal clinics need, and that can help us to build a business case to LexisNexis and other stakeholders about how we can continue to improve the lives of poor and low income people throughout the country. So not only did we do research, and talk to other humans, but we were able to consult sources, which talked about, you know, how much legal services typically cost? How many people are, you know, turned away when they seek legal services? And all of those things could allow us to document our findings, but even provide recommendations to the next group of fellows so they can investigate, like, well, some of the top elite universities in our country that have legal clinics, such as Harvard, or Georgetown, what are they doing? And how can we learn from those schools, and use some of those tools and techniques in some of the HBCUs, which historically, haven’t had the same amount of resources. And we also found out about, you know, some of the HBCU law schools closing down, like, I never knew that that happened before this research. So it also inspired me to be like, Miss Mary McLeod Bethune, like, how can I do something so that when I’m dead and gone, make an impact so that more young people, especially black people who want to be attorneys can get that opportunity to do so?

Greg Lambert 27:28
Great, great. Well, Adonica, I want to give you a chance to kind of do some bragging on the fellows, and the fellowship program. So what do you think kind of? What are some of the highlights and that result from this type of fellowship? And is there some other things that LexisNexis is doing that people should know about?

Adonica Black 27:54
Yeah, I could talk about this forever right? I, I’m sure you notice me just like smiling and nodding with with Whitney and Paul, because I’m so proud of them, and so thoroughly impressed by the work that they’re doing. And just the thoughtfulness and with which they approach their projects. And I think that’s true of all of our fellows. All of our fellows come from very unique backgrounds themselves, right? Not only are they maybe overtly diverse in terms of maybe race or ethnicity, but also we’ve got a range of classes of ages, we’ve got a range of statuses from Paul to being in the military, to some some of our fellows be parents to some being part time students, some being full time employees at other places, and they’re all unified around this concept of doing something for our legal system. So I just think that’s amazing in and of itself. And we talk about this mod trainer fellowship program called That Was Then, This is Now and it’s something that we use as a motive fight baiting call for our fellows, because it’s also professional development experience for them. So we’ve asked them to do some heroic things, we’ve asked them to do some public speaking and in front of hundreds of people, we’ve asked them to draft a published report, we’ve asked them to do some significant things that I think for any attorney or aspiring attorney, it may be challenging, and we really rally them with, you know, that was done in terms of you thought maybe you couldn’t do this. And with the time with that effort with the support you’ve gotten, this is now and you have done it. And I think that is true of how we are approaching Inclusion and Diversity as a business as well. We really are thinking very strategically about that was then, in terms of issues that we’ve identified within our own talent community and the external communities within which we serve. And then with applied focus Professional Development, mentorship, sponsorship, really making sure that our all of our talent feels well supported, and championing that sense of inclusion and belonging so that everyone feels committed on this is now, right. So we get to a point where we’re now seeing some of the fruits of that labor. And we are seeing people succeeding in their careers developing professionally, we’re seeing leaders, understanding what it means to contribute and lead and maintain an inclusive culture, and then supporting it and wanting to champion that, because they recognize the value for themselves in the business. So there’s a lot that we’re doing in this space. And I’m really, again, just very proud of the work that is happening. But I recognize that we’re on a journey, and we are continuing.

Greg Lambert 30:48
Excellent. Well, I love the concept of that was then this is this is now and how you’re applying it. And and this is now you get to two of your fellows here on a podcast, they will listen to the podcast, hopefully hundreds and hundreds of people. So. So what’s on the… What do you see for the fellowship program and initiatives going into the future Adonica?

Adonica Black 31:16
Yeah, so, two things that I think we’re looking forward to in the coming year that are exciting to me. One, we are a global organization. So we really want to make sure that we are globally supporting Equity and our legal systems across the world. So we are launching the South African chapter of our fellowship program, we’ve just been launched yet, on Thursday of Thanksgiving, actually. Because it’s not a holiday there. So if you launch with our partners there, and we’re really excited to be able to grow the mission in that way, and hoping to continue to expand across our global communities that we work with and serve. And in terms of impact, we are also evolving to include in addition to law school students, students that have or graduates that have a STEM background, because one of the things that our fellows have helped us to understand in their reports is that these tech solutions are really viable. And so we need people to help us build the technology, we have a lot of prototype work from what our fellows have established. And we are looking to incorporate students that have a background in STEM that can do the software development, do the data analytics, do the data science and user experience research and help us actually develop some of these solutions.

Greg Lambert 32:43
That’s fun. Yeah, I’m, I’m excited about the South African cohorts that you’re creating. I had a chance a few years ago, to go to the Supreme Court in Pretoria, South Africa, in and present and it was really, really enjoy what a wonderful place.

Adonica Black 33:06
We’re partnering with the International Association of Women judges, that Africa chapter for the program launched there. And it’s amazing just to see their commitment and as a nation, how much they emphasize justice. So looking forward to that,

Greg Lambert 33:23
well, if you need a podcaster to go down to South Africa. The unfortunate pneus of being able to do podcasts remotely. So right now we’re at the part of the show where we ask our crystal ball question and that is really what we want you to do is, is pull out your crystal ball and peer into the future for us. So I’ll start with Whitney, you know, what do you see on the horizon for the next, say, two to five years that you hope your work with the fellowship and work on this report will help change or maybe even challenge in the legal industry?

Whitney Triplet 34:13
My project really hit close to home. I’m from Louisiana. And as I’m sure you know, Louisiana has been one of the very last states to outlawed non unanimous jury decisions for criminal convictions. So I am very much interested in continuing that momentum and working to you know, ultimately, I would like to see peremptory strikes with more definitive boundaries. So I definitely see myself working in that field for the next few years.

Greg Lambert 34:47
We’ll keep writing on it and keep fighting on it.

Whitney Triplet 34:51
Thank you.

Greg Lambert 34:52
And Paul, how about you? What do you think your your report will change your challenge in the industry?

Paul Campbell 34:59
I definitely think it will bring awareness to legal clinics, you know, me personally, I have donated to University of Miami general clinic fund as well as Rising for Justice, because as a student attorney, you know, I was able to see firsthand how we, as the legal clinic don’t have the same resources as some of the other entities that are on the other side of the table. So I think LexisNexis, who has made a commitment already to have a clinical page on their website, we’ll continue to improve it and continue to offer services to these legal clinics, and more individuals will hopefully volunteer their time and money to continue to serve the low income populations throughout our country.

Greg Lambert 35:51
Nice. So Adonica, Since you didn’t write the report, let me tell you, you wrote a great introduction to it. Pull out your crystal ball. And what would you see more generally for the legal industry in the next few years when it comes to dealing with with issues of bias and systemic racism?

Adonica Black 36:16
Yeah. I guess I’m biased in the sense that I’m really hopeful. Honestly, I think that this program, in addition to just the general legal community discussion has truly evolved. I’m also an attorney. And I haven’t really seen this level of people be aware, and culturally competent enough to discuss these issues before. And I think AI actually in technology, the advent of technology has really helped us kind of leapfrog to where we need to be having these conversations, and really evaluating and auditing our systems to make sure that the future of our systems are more equitable. So I am really excited about that. And I’m very hopeful that we will continue to see more of that. And I will also want to just quickly recognize that I’m already seeing that. We have great partners in this program. We have a law firm that has sponsored us, Reed Smith, we have partnered with the National Bar Association, and the historically black colleges and law school consortium. And I see it coming up in all of their conversations, all of their conversations are talking about this equitability in the law and how it intersects with technology. So I’m hopeful that that will continue.

Greg Lambert 37:36
Great, great. Well, I’m inspired by the inspiration that you you guys have have given all of us both through your report and you know, through the work that you’re doing, and and we’ll be doing so, Whitney Triplet, and Paul Campbell, thank you very much. And we’re going to put a link to your report so that people can get access to that. And Adonica Black, thank you for pulling us all together and helping the students and getting the getting the ability to one, use the resources that are out there, but to also have the guidance to create this report. So thank you.

Adonica Black 38:21
Thank you so much, Greg.

Greg Lambert 38:26
All right. And of course, thanks to everyone, to all of our listeners for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoy the show, please share it with a colleague, especially this episode. We’d love to hear from you. So you can reach out to Marlene and me on LinkedIn. And Marlene is on X at @gebauerm and I’m on X at @glambert. Adonica, let me let me ask you, where’s the preferred place for people to find you online?

Adonica Black 38:57
I’m on LinkedIn most all the time. Adonica Black.

Greg Lambert 39:01
All right. And Whitney, how about you?

Whitney Triplet 39:04
The same. I’m on LinkedIn as well. My first name last name, Whitney Triplet.

Greg Lambert 39:08
All right. And Paul.

Paul Campbell 39:11
I’m like totally off the grid, but you can send me an email at Paul.Campbell@udc.edu.

Greg Lambert 39:18
All right. All right. Email is still a legitimate way to converse. So all right, well, thank Thank you all once again for being here. Thank you. And as always, the music you hear is from our friend Jerry David DeCicca Thanks, Jerry. All right. Thanks again everybody.